Hacker News Reader

Comment by Cupertino95014 | Hacker News Reader

It's funny that people who go out of their way to announce their "support" for marginalized people don't bother asking the gardeners who use them why they use them.

In California those are overwhelmingly Mexican, and they're working in the hot sun to feed their families. They use a leaf blower because it lets them get done faster and make a little more money.

View on HN

They can still use a leaf blower but in the future it must be electric powered instead of gasoline.

Yes. In the State of regular rolling blackouts, and electrical grid sparked wildfires.

Nothing could possibly go wrong.

I can see it now. Some dude sitting around drinking coffee waiting for his gear to charge plugged into a gas powered generator.

I hope they get to charge by hour, not by job.

And by doing fewer jobs per hour, everyone pays more.

Modern battery technology is way better than it used to be. Today, you can use the same battery you use to power your cordless drill to power radios, vacuum cleaners, circular saws/table saws, chainsaws, trimmers, and even lawnmowers. DeWalt's 20V MAX system in particular is pretty neat.

These guys have a job that requires professional tools. They are not piddling around in the yard for a few hours on Saturday morning.

My contractors are already using these today and rave about them.

Also, the batteries are swappable. They’ll charge spares wherever they can, often on site where they can find an outlet.

Currently they bring their own fuel to worksites. What happens when there's no outlet for them to plug into? There are large numbers of landscaping scenarios where this will be the case. Do they bring a diesel generator?

All of my yard tools, including my lawnmower, are electric. For reasons of both cost and power, I went with corded rather than battery powered. Battery tech is constantly improving and maybe at some point it will get to the point where it is viable for a yard like mine but for people who are doing a large number of properties per day, it's going to be quite a while.

Seems like the better interim solution would be making the small engines used by these tools emit less. This would of course increase the complexity and cost but seems like a better tradeoff than extension cords with large voltage drops, diesel generators, or lugging around half a dozen times more batteries than devices.

It seems like commercial should be granted an exemption here. It's just not realistic to run battery operated hand tools like it is if you are only maintaining one single family home sized lot for all the reasons you mentioned. Plus gardeners can repair and maintain their own gas powered tools themselves, can't do that with electronic equipment that is built to be disposed of rather than fixed.

“Currently they bring their own fuel to worksites. What happens when there's no outlet for them to plug into?”

Gas powered electric generators

Which are evidently going to be banned under this same bill a few years later in 2028. What happens then? Follow the work truck with a second box truck that's absolutely full to the brim of batteries?

I, for one, can’t wait to see the plug-in electric mowers with a mount for a generator.

While you jest, a generator running at a relatively constant speed and load (loads can be extracted to capacitors) should reduce noise, maintenance, and emissions (albeit, overall weight would increase and mechanical efficiency would decrease)

The Ford F-150 aims to solve that problem (and I guess other EVs will have / has similar capabilities).

> With an electric motor mounted on each of its axles, the vehicle will offer more torque — in effect, faster acceleration — than any previous F-150 and will be capable of towing up to 10,000 pounds. Its battery pack can power a home for about three days during an outage, according to Ford. For contractors and other commercial truck users, the Lightning will be able to power electric saws, tools and lighting, potentially replacing or reducing the need for generators at work sites. It has up to 11 power outlets.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/19/business/ford-electric-ve...

Electric equipment is just not practical or realistic for these landscaping operations where you are working 50-60 hours a week. They would have to replace batteries constantly as they get worn out from being constantly depleted and charging. Not to mention you would have to run your chargers off a generator in the truck bed anyhow, negating any green benefit since these things are noisy and pollute just as much as a hand tool. If they didn't need power offered by commercial grade gas equipment, they would be using cheaper handheld blowers rather than heavier and more expensive backpack models. Plus brands like STIHL are practically bulletproof in terms of reliability.

> Not to mention you would have to run your chargers off a generator in the truck bed anyhow, negating any green benefit since these things are noisy and pollute just as much as a hand tool.

One big engine is cleaner, more efficient, and quieter than a bunch of small 2-stroke engines.

A big engine they have to run 100% of the time they are parked to keep the juice flowing. A blower is only running when it's being ran which is just one portion of the job.

The obvious solution is to use something like the hybrid Ford F-150, which will only run the engine as-needed while still providing continuous 7.2kW power for battery charging or directly powering tools.

That's going to be a tough sell for landscapers currently getting by with a 25 year old F150. If the state is forcing these costs onto working people like this, they should also subsidize the cost to get newer legal equipment. The state of california already offers funding for wealthy people to buy Teslas, they should do something for day laborers too.

Landscapers currently getting by with a 25 year old F150 can continue to also get by with their existing tools. They won't need a new F-150 to serve as a generator until they are well into the process of retiring their gas-powered tools in favor of electric tools. And there will even be a grace period of several years where they can start migrating to electric tools and buy a separate generator. Because these rules are about what's legal to sell new, no what's legal to have and use.

(Also, based on CARB's definition of "Small Off-Road Engines" which is what the law applies to, diesel generators of any size will not be affected.)

I'd image they will buy up as much old used equiptment as possible, rebuild engines, and even get equipment from out of state.

Maybe that is a career that doesn't need to exist. It provides zero benefit to anyone and head detrimental effects such as noise and dust particles

I certainly won't weap if the entire leaf blower industry flat out dies

.. and thanks for proving my point: you don't give a rat's ass for the actual minorities; just the abstract concept of them.

Leaf blowers are used by firms and public agencies because it lets the work get done with fewer labor-hours, reducing labor costs and overall labor demand. By number of firms that may mostly be small independent gardeners, but weighted by CO2 output its probably not.

(Pigovian taxes would be better, ignoring implementation and administration costs, than a straight ban, but simple gas taxes either overcharge cars or undercharge tools like this, which are vastly worse per gallon of gas consumed.)

Why is it, then, that whenever there's a city hearing about this (and Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and other affluent cities), the gardeners always show up and testify against it?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com