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Comment by kbenson | Hacker News Reader

Why? I'm sure they're less practical than the gas powered ones, but every tool system with their own battery standard seems to have one. Even if you had to have a few batteries charged in reserve, that seems more like slightly more expensive and annoying than utterly impractical. Am I missing something?

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You basically can run through a high capacity battery in less than 10 minutes, completing a light cleanup of a standard 1/4ac lawn. The battery itself will take 3-4 hours.

Running through an entire block would deplete numerous batteries, meaning you’ve got to purchase 2 dozen if your crew is going to do the average 20ish homes a day. The purchase cost is one thing sure, but batteries are a consumable and the logistics of charging are no joke for the average crew.

This is all just to blow some light leaves and clippings. This doesn’t account for running trimmers or god help you the lawnmower itself.

The tech just isn’t there yet and given the extremely high energy density and ease of use of gasoline, it may never match it.

I understand that they are less convenient and probably significantly more expensive for commercial use. That's why legislation is necessary, so landscapers who choose them aren't at a cost disadvantage. Externalities like air pollution are the textbook reason for regulations like this.

I mean we are talking an order of magnitude more effort and cost in exchange for noise pollution. I suspice if you told voters lawn care would quadruple in price in exchange for less (note, not eliminated) noise and air pollution that voters would not be terribly keen to approve such a solution.

> lawn care would quadruple in price

Come on, they're expensive but not that expensive.

From a little looking, the Greenworks 82BA26-52DP[1] seems like it might work well. It has a fairly long run time on battery on high (40 minutes), very long on low (2 hours), and has a dual port charging solution that seems to be able to charge batteries in 40-60 minutes depending on battery size. About a hour per tank of gas for a gas powered leaf blower seems to be about average, so I don't think stopping that often is really a problem.

It is more expensive up front, from even the electric blower's own numbers, but they say it's much cheaper over a year if you have a 4 hour daily usage cycle.[2] I don't know enough to know whether the claims make sense or not. Maybe you know more about this, but maybe it's not as clearly one sided as you think?

1: https://www.greenworkscommercial.com/products/82ba26-52dp-82...

2: https://www.greenworkscommercial.com/cdn/shop/files/82BA26-S...

I'm on the (admittedly expensive) EGO system of lawn tools, and I can mow, trim, and blow my entire yard (front and back) in a relatively normal lot (8000 sq ft) on one 10.0Ah battery. It recharges in 2 hours. So I think electric is a touch more practical than your numbers might represent.

But for commercial use I agree, the upfront capex cost is prohibitive. And the need for charging infrastructure (in truck or other) presents an issue.

There are companies that make battery packs the sizes of small ice coolers that can serve as a charging “hub” on your truck.

Plus there are trucks like the f150 lighting that have electrical outlets so you could recharge in the field.

Thirdly, with 1-2 spare batteries that you can swap and charge, you basically have zero downtime.

Those are some awfully expensive purchases for a small low-margin business.

The truck, yes. A few extra batteries and a charger are somewhat expensive, but within expectation of the job I think. I doubt most locations are entirely without power that they can use. Even public parks often have outlets at specific locations.

In the end the extra battery cost might be cheaper than the gas and maintenance requirements for gas blowers over time.

They already have backpack ones for long use. It is already solved here in Australia.

They're not even in the same ballpark

My 80v electric blower with a heavy battery runs for 21 minutes. A gas blower with 1.5 gallons of fuel will last 10 hours.

A ban on gas blowers - or blowing in general - will only harm minorities already underpaid, often under the table.

Those minorities get the worst of the air pollution and dangerous noise levels themselves. And you have to add the externality of everyone else being affected by the pollution before you weigh the costs and benefits. Of course landscapers shouldn't be expected to switch voluntarily when it puts them at a competitive disadvantage, it's a textbook case of externality needing regulations.

> My 80v electric blower with a heavy battery runs for 21 minutes. A gas blower with 1.5 gallons of fuel will last 10 hours.

I found backbpack models (and if we're comparing professional services that's what seems we should compare) that claim 60 minuntes on high at 800cfm+ and 20 hours on low, with dual charger systems you can buy to supplement.

I saw numbers quoting that most professional leaf blowers go through about 0.43 gallons of fuel an hour. The top backpack blowers I looked up didn't even have a 1.5 gallon tank. The Echo PB-9010T has a 83.8 fl. oz. tank. The Stihl BR 800 C-E Magnum has a 67.6 oz. tank. The SCHRÖDER SR-9900X 80cc has a tank size of 75 oz.

If you have to stop to refuel every hour or so anyway, swapping out a battery that's been charging doesn't seem like a big inconvenience.

> A ban on gas blowers - or blowing in general - will only harm minorities already underpaid, often under the table.

I'm not sure we should be avoiding legislation meant to protect the public in general (air and noise pollution) because of possible affects to some specific subcategory (leaf blowing) of an industry (landscaping) which happens to employ minorities in a higher percentage than other industries. If we were to always do that, then we'd rarely ever have any useful public protections, would we?

How many professional leaf blowers per capita do you think we have, anyway, and if it costs more for everyone since it's regulated, why would the impact really be that great, since it should just mean they charge more?

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