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Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

One major reason why electric lawn equipment isn't more popular for commercial: Excessive battery costs.

If you're a home-owner you can rotate a couple of batteries and likely only use the ones included with the equipment bundle(s). But commercial users don't have that luxury, they're definitely buying additional batteries. Manufacturers commonly charge an excessive premium for add-on batteries.

Example:

- Toro Brushless Leaf Blower (51820) + 2.5 Ah battery (88625) & charger (88602): $199

- Toro 2.5 Ah battery (88625): $165

So the battery add-on costs 82%~ of the tools total cost alone. As a homeowner after n years you'll likely respond by just outright replacing the tool for a new bundle, but in a commercial context this just kills the whole idea. According to the manufacturer at the lowest speed setting each battery lasts 90 minutes, and nobody is using this at the lowest setting.

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That’s bonkers!

If you’re somewhere you can’t charge, you’re talking $1500 to do 4 hours of heavy work.

And that’s assuming your small battery pack can even put out enough torque to match a 2-stroke for heavy uses.

Or you fit your pickup truck with an inverter (which you probably already have tbh) and charge batteries as you drive to the next job. And wait until you hear about some exciting products that require no battery at all, like Rake and Broom!

It takes 3 hours to recharge the provided battery on the provided charger. That means a battery could be used, at most, twice in a day therefore still requiring add-on batteries for commercial applications (3x~ per tool, per day).

As to the "rake and broom," point: there's an innate time value to consider for commercial applications. If each job takes longer, you'll do fewer jobs, and could lose money overall.

I'm not really clear on what point you were trying to make? That add-ons aren't overpriced? That commercial lawn care companies should wait 3 hrs between jobs? That manual raking and gas/electric blowers offer the same productivity?

The point is that you're focusing on the worst-case scenario costs, rather than considering that there are workarounds (faster commercial chargers, vehicle as less-polluting power store for mains-power electrical tools, manual tools that work better and faster in some contexts).

I think you understand this quite well.

> The point is that you're focusing on the worst-case scenario costs

It is quite literally today's current prices at major retailers. It isn't the worst case, Toro's battery overcharging is pretty in-line with other manufacturers, and I picked Toro because it is popular/mainstream for commercial work already.

> faster commercial chargers

You're saying that for a commercial lawn care company to switch to electric right now they have to buy chargers that don't exist for sale?

> vehicle as less-polluting power store for mains-power electrical tool,

And the cost of batteries? You're just completely ignoring the comment chain's topic entirely.

> manual tools that work better and faster in some contexts

Commercial lawn care and leaf blowers/trimmers is the context. It is literally what the thread and comment chain is about. In the context we're talking about: No, absolutely not. In other irrelevant contexts? Sure, I guess?

You built your example on 2.5Ah batteries. It only took me a few minutes to find a 7.5Ah battery from Toro that offered better value (3x the capacity for a little over 2x the price). See? Things are 3 times better already.

You're saying that for a commercial lawn care company to switch to electric right now they have to buy chargers that don't exist for sale?

Multi-bank commercial chargers (also known as battery tenders) are a thing. There are many third-party offerings. I did not check for compatibility with Toro batteries specifically, but if is as popular a brand as you say then then either they already exist or will soon.

manual tools that work better and faster in some contexts

This is ridiculous. Rakes and brooms work better than leafblowers in some cleaning contexts, like where you have a pile of wet leaves banked up somewhere (mentioned on another thread); blowing them is difficult and slow, whereas they can be moved in moments with a rake.

Is this really so hard to figure out? The original references to 'Rake and Broom' were clearly humorous, but it doesn't take much imagination to think up situations where a manual tool can actually be the most efficient choice. You seem bent on disputing everything rather than admitting that it might be possible to get things done without filthy 2-stroke engines.

Or ICE powered gas tools.

How often will you be killing these batteries if you are draining and charging multiple times a day?

Laws like this have an undue hardship effect on lower-wage landscapers and gardeners. That's why I oppose them.

Conversely, they mitigate the undue hardship effects of noise and chemical pollution on involuntary recipients, as well as the long-term health burden on landscapers are gardeners who experience high levels of chronic exposure.

Not all electric lawn equipment uses batteries. A lot just plug in. Oakland isn't a place with huge yards, so corded equipment works fine.

So instead of starting up a gas blower, they start up a huge gas generator in the truck instead and run extension cords over the sidewalk from wherever they could park to the jobsite

What's wrong with using the outlets on the sides of houses?

In that case the landscaping crew might need permission from the property owner to tap in to their house and some way to compensate them for the increased electric bill. Also convenient outlets outside aren't typical for older homes or buildings.

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