The invention provides nickel-copper clad tabs for rechargeable battery negative electrodes and methods of manufacturing thereof. Systems and methods for configuring tabs on a rechargeable battery may include a current collector comprising one or more collector foil and one or more tabs connected to the collector foil for conveying generated current from the current collector. The tabs may be configured to extract greater capacity from the battery electrodes so that the resulting battery may exhibit higher performance. The tabs may be configured so that a negative electrode tab may be clad with a nickel layer and a copper layer.