About ABT

We give lithium cells a second working life, and build the packs South Africa usually imports.

Advanced Battery Technologies recovers, grades and reworks cylindrical lithium-ion cells in Somerset West, and builds them into finished battery packs for security, off-grid lighting, e-mobility and manufacturing customers.

The problem

Good cells get shredded while packs get imported.

Businesses in security, off-grid lighting and micromobility mostly buy their battery packs from overseas, with long lead times, container-sized minimums and nobody local who can open a pack up, diagnose it or stand behind it.

At the same time, perfectly usable lithium cells are shredded or sent to landfill: new cells used only in manufacturers’ weld-validation testing, surplus stock, and cells inside packs that were thrown away whole because a few cells failed.

That’s the gap ABT exists to close: recover the cells, grade them properly, and build the packs here.

Our mission

To supply reliable lithium power from cells that would otherwise be wasted, built locally and supported locally.

40+ yrscombined leadership experience in battery testing, manufacturing and sales
18650 + 21700cell formats in stock, graded and reworked in-house; others considered for significant projects
Cell → packrecovery, grading, assembly and testing under one roof in Somerset West
What we stand on

Four principles behind every pack

01

Grade every cell

Nothing goes into a pack, or out to a customer, until it has been tested and sorted on our automated line.

02

Build to a standard

Battery management on every pack, conservative design margins, and capacity, balance and thermal checks before anything leaves.

03

Repair before replace

A pack with a few tired cells isn’t waste. We repair and rebuild packs for a second life, keeping them out of landfill.

04

Protect our clients’ IP

Businesses trust us with prototype and production pack designs. Their intellectual property stays theirs, start to finish.

The plant

Automated equipment, with room to grow

Our line has far more capacity than today’s orders use, which means short lead times for you and room for contract work.

Welding

7 automated spot welders

Automated resistance spot welding for consistent, repeatable pack builds.

Grading

Automated testing & sorting

Grades cells at around 4,000 an hour, so every batch is matched before it’s built.

Rework

Cell rework machine

A bespoke machine that returns both 18650 and 21700 cells to specification.

The team

The people behind the packs

EG

Etienne Gerber

Non-Executive Director

25 years in business development, innovation and technology management, with an engineering background spanning manufacturing, energy and telecommunications. Etienne leads ABT’s technical development strategy at board level.

DH

Duncan Hipkin

Non-Executive Director

Holds investments across energy storage, monitoring & analytics and power-solutions businesses. For the last decade he has worked alongside engineering teams developing strategies for optimising hybrid power systems and storage assets.

RT

Ronald Tsvaki

Lead Product Engineer & Designer

MSc Electronic Engineer with experience across firmware, test engineering and full-stack development, including automated validation of lithium battery products. Ronald designs ABT’s products and the tests that prove them, and is an IPC J-STD-001 certified specialist.

The Somerset West workshop

Grading, assembly & repair

The people who grade the cells, run the welding line, test the packs and rebuild tired ones. Visit us at Olive Grove Estate.

Want to see how we’d approach your project?