BATTERY EVOLUTION
When Tesla EVs gained popularity using LFP batteries, Mean Green tried that chemistry with swappable batteries.“ We started selling more of those than we did lead-acid battery mowers, but the swappable battery frustrated a lot of people,” he said. The users, said Conrad, didn’ t want to change from gas-powered mowers that they were used to refueling; they didn’ t want to stop and swap batteries mid-mow.
“ We were trying to get enough lithium in there to run it all day on one charge, even beyond 5 acres. And that’ s what morphed into the NMC batteries. It was like‘ wow, this is going great.’ It’ s lighter, more energy dense and we saved some money.”
It wasn’ t all about the NMC chemistry.“ It was a lot about supply chain. Over the years we’ ve really balanced the pros and cons of chemistry and the supply chain because we just can’ t compete against the car industry. It’ s very challenging,” said Conrad.
Mean Green is aware of the heat concerns with NMC cells and incorporates safety mechanisms in layers to protect users and the equipment.
Voltage, watt-hours, amp-hours- OEMs communicate in different ways on batteries, making it difficult for buyers to compare.
Greenworks: The case for LFP
“ Ford is setting up an LFP manufacturing facility here in U. S. They are moving away from NMC to LFP. The fundamental reason they say is safety,” said Yin Chen, CEO of Greenworks.“ We are the only brand in the whole industry using LFP battery for electric equipment. One downside is a low-temperature situation. The second downside is the weight; LFP is going to be 10 % to 15 % heavier than NMC.”
To counteract the low-temp. operation downside, Greenworks uses heating pads to keep the battery warm based on temperature sensor readings. For the weight disadvantage, Chen said it’ s really only a problem on spec sheets.“ Our battery( Chen points to a large zero-turn) right now is 390 pounds. If we used NMC material, we’ re going to be 30 pounds lighter. But it’ s 30 pounds lighter for a 1,200-pound machine. That’ s nothing. But with LFP we triple the life from 500 to 2,000 cycles.”
Ford is indeed building an EV battery plant known as BlueOval Battery Park in Michigan. The plant will manufacturer LFP batteries using a Fordspecific design, though the car maker is getting assistance from CATL, the largest battery manufacturer in the world, based in China. Ford said it will make LFP batteries without using Chinese-sourced materials.
Back to Greenworks and its use of LFP. Chen reiterated the safety message about LFP and added the increased lifecycles.“ The LFP is 2,000 cycles,” he said.“ If you’ re using 200 cycles a year, which is one charge and discharge per day, that’ s 2,000 days. That’ s basically 10 years of battery life.”
What about other manufacturers?
“ Whether you look at sodium, whether you look at LFP, whatever the chemistry is, everybody’ s looking to do the same thing,” said Todd Zimmerman, SVP of dealer sales, operations and product for Kress tools.“ We all want more power, we want faster charging, and we want longer battery life.”
“ It’ s just what chemistry is going to be better than the next chemistry. We’ ve read white papers for years on different chemistries trying to do it in development of battery powered equipment.”
Zimmerman said that Don Gao, the CEO of Positec Corporation, Kress parent, worked with the University of Waterloo( a well-known engineering and research campus in Ontario, Canada) to invest in and create proprietary battery chemistries for its equipment.“ We were able to come up with those chemistries working with lithium ion and other chemistries” that allow battery cells to perform to Kress specifications. He said it’ s about reducing resistance in the battery cell.
Stihl uses a lithium iron phosphate( LFP) battery in its zero-turn mowers.“ It’ s a little heavier but provides other attributes that we find to be better for that particular use case,” said Paul Beblowski, Stihl product manager.“ Each particular chemistry is linked to the performance of the battery along with other attributes like its weight. You end up having trade-offs between performance, weight, cost, temperature profile, those sorts of things.”
Milwaukee Tool states it uses lithium-ion batteries in its equipment, not giving further specifics regarding chemistry. You could guess that most manufacturers use NMC batteries in their handheld equipment for its lighter weight compared to LFP batteries. Even Chen of Greenworks said his company uses NMC in its handheld equipment for that reason.
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