I bought the EGO mower, blower and weedeater about 4 years ago, and I love the fact that a) there is no gas/oil mixture to deal with, b) I don't have to pull that stupid cord (I have t-rex arms), c) I'm not polluting the environment to have a nice yard, d) they are sooo quiet, and e) there is no electrical cord to drag around / run over. BUT, the batteries that came with the set are degrading with time pretty severely and now I run out of battery 3 times while mowing my 1/4 acre lawn, or 2x while blowing leaves off my porch and short driveway. I think this is a solution that would definitely benefit from some better batteries, like the ones Tesla makes for cars.
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Ryobi has very good cordless riding and push electric lawnmowers. I'm on my 3rd year with a rider. While it has deep cycle AGM lead-acid batteries, they are still at 100% and I've been mowing 2 acres. There is a commercial LiOn based mower but when I last checked, it was over $20 without a mower deck. Has quick swap batteries as a benefit, primarily aimed at golf courses. There is no need for Tesla to get into this business, they have plenty of vehicle opportunities to keep them busy for another decade or more. -model Y owner
Working out of my home for many years now, the noise pollution from yard equipment is very real and very annoying! Each neighbor has their own company, so we randomly have yard maintenance crews coming in on different days at different times. The mowers and trimmers are loud, but the blowers are pretty extreme to the point I sometime have to put earplugs in so I can concentrate on what I'm doing.
If Tesla made electric, battery powered professional grade lawn equipment, I would certainly be on board with that.
If Tesla made electric, battery powered professional grade lawn equipment, I would certainly be on board with that.
HooosierDaddy
Member
I didn't read the thread and don't plan to, but here's my Ryobi 42" Deck Electric Zero Turn. It's been two years now with it and it's been rock solid.
Electric short haul aeroplanes are here:
Going Electric – Harbour Air: North America's Largest Seaplane Airline – Since 1982
Going Electric – Harbour Air: North America's Largest Seaplane Airline – Since 1982
I've been patiently awaiting the arrival of my Swardman Electra which has been delayed for months due to COVID. Was hoping to receive it at the start of the growing season but oh well 
There will be plenty of dethatching and scarifying to do when it arrives. The company is based in the Czech Republic and distributed by Reel Rollers here in the U.S. Here are a couple video review to see it in action:
There will be plenty of dethatching and scarifying to do when it arrives. The company is based in the Czech Republic and distributed by Reel Rollers here in the U.S. Here are a couple video review to see it in action:
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Do we think Tesla is more likely to scale down to these devices, or scale up to something like domestic aircraft?
Making planes and dealing with the FAA is a regulatory minefield, especially when we're basically talking about redesigning aircraft manufacturing from the ground up to create a never before used and completely safe 100% electric commercial passenger jet. I mean, I suppose if Elon is willing to take on rockets with Space X, then why not the aviation industry, but jumping into the aircraft manufacturing biz would be a gargantuan undertaking. There's a reason there are only a few large airplane manufacturers worldwide.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
I'm close by in Buffalo, New York....
I've been doing everything electrically for a while now - besides 3 plugin cars, I also have only solely electric tools. As far as lawnmowers I have had for 6 years a horribly underpowered (plus this thing is only good for the smallest yard anyway) TORO - E-Cycler (the popular gasoline version is the Re-Cycler). A mulching mower needs at least 3 and preferably 6 hp - the E- cycler has 1/3 hp with a fresh battery, and for most of the time can only develop 1/4 hp (for metric people that is a massive 186 watts). Using the thing was a chore and a half - having to go constantly over the same cut lawn over and over again.
I finally gave the thing away to an 'ecologically interested' friend, and bought an expensive SNAPPER lawn mower which is considered semi-residential-commercial, with its heavy, and thick steel decking. This unit has 2 - 82 volt - 2 ampere-hour and 1 - 4 ampere hour battery I bought in addition for $320 extra.
I need the 3 fully charged batteries (8 ah-worth), since the thing eats batteries, but at an estimated 1 hp output the thing may stall, but at least it works like a regular mulching mower and does a great job with one or two passes. Charging is via a wall mounted fast charger - whose fan forced cooling pulls air through the battery to be charged, a nice touch. 3 amps drawn at 110 volts, so those times when you need more than the 3 batteries you will have a recharged one by the time you need it.
Now Snowblowers are another thing: I have a corded SNO-JOE 14 amp 21" model - the largest 'toy' snowblower you can buy, and it works well (along with its similarly constructed lawn tiller made up of almost all the same parts), but it runs out of power easily - especially if you have to use more than one 100 foot #12 gauge extension cord.
I bought a friend's old CASE 724 two-stage (first stage has a dual augur since the mouth is so huge (24" wide x 23" high) that had a blown 7 HP gas engine on it. I took the engine-less snowblower and chancing that I was way underpowering the thing, I bought a dirt cheap ($140) 3 HP Harbor 'Junk' tools Smith & Jones (typical chinese names) motor - which incidentally , is a perfectly fine 3500 rpm induction motor that meets any efficiency requirements at less than 13 amperes @ 230 volts full load. Of course, I load it up to around 7 hp (the breakdown torque limit of the motor) - draws 35 amperes @ 210 volts (after 150 feet of extension cord) plugged into my Tesla Nema 14-50 at the front of the garage.
At a heavy WET snowstorm the march before last, the snow was so heavy that all the gas engine snowblowers costing more than $1000 were conking out on my street, but my home made electric was just shooting snow like crazy going down the side walk... So far from being underpowered, the thing was better than anything gasoline commercially sold. The extremely cold weather prevented the overload protector from nuisance tripping, but I could tell it was WORKING since the motor in the past has normally been stone cold, but here it was luke warm so I KNEW it was paying for itself. I chose sprocket sizes to simulate a 3,000 rpm gas engine, in other words, the thing ran like a 7 hp snow thrower running just short of flat out (3000 vs 3600 rpm).
Nobody wants a cord. I want to use my charger, but I know it's just a connecter and the charger is in the car, so I guess I'm out of luck.
I've been patiently awaiting the arrival of my Swardman Electra which has been delayed for months due to COVID. Was hoping to receive it at the start of the growing season but oh well
Awesome. Battery reel mowers are really hard to find. There is one for small yards (Gardena) and a commercial and really expensive Toro one. This one looks like it fits right in the middle.
RedBaronCircus
Member
I purchased the ego mower and blower as a package and are very happy with the performance.This one is robotic and Solar.
Husqvarna® Showcases New Automower? Solar Hybrid at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show
HUSQVARNA AUTOMOWER?
You would have to subtract what the person normally is producing. Most likely it would be net neutral because if the person wasn't mowing, they'd likely be at the gym or doing some other exercise.This is a long thread?
I wonder how much CO2 is produced by using the human-powered mowers (as in, the person while doing the pushing vs the person at-rest) vs like, a riding mower, on a per-acre basis.
Nobody said it would take the same amount of time to drive that distance. The point was that 1 hour of mowing, with a crappy ICE mower, produces more pollution than a drive of that distance.
lafrisbee
Active Member
the car engine is running less than an hour when the roads clear, and over 3 hours when it is congested. And it creates more pollution in the stop and go traffic FOR THE WHOLE THREE HOURS. Whereas the smooth fast ride burns clean for less than an hour. Come on man, you can't be.....?
It is a piss poor choice. Period.
EDIT: YOU EVEN STATE THE COMPARISON IS TIME OF THE MOWER VS DISTANCE IN AN ICE VEHICLE. APPLES VERSUS ORANGES MAKES SENSE TO YOU? Have a good life.
The comparison is two different activities and how much they pollute. Yes, the activity of mowing your lawn pollutes more than the activity of driving that distance. The point is to show just how horrible ICE lawn equipment is.
