OUTDOOR POWER EQUIPMENT
According to Wam , the company ran a marketing campaign years ago to fight in favor of gasoline , and the comments it received from consumers were not good . “ Many people told us we needed to evolve ,” she said . Had it not done so , it might have become the modern-day Kodak , a company famous for eschewing the digital camera biz .
At the opposite end of the evolutionary spectrum , Kress promotes “ The death of gas ” on its website . “ Welcome to the post-gas era ,” announces Kress with a headline over its battery-charging system . Kress has been marketing battery-powered tools — and only battery-powered tools — to the North American market for one year , though its roots are deeper in Europe . With a focus on equipment powered by fast-charging batteries for commercial users , Kress is trying to reach landscapers and OPE professionals to address their expectations of electric tools .
PERFORMANCE IS MONEY “ The first thing landscapers ask us for is a substitute for gas equipment ,” said John Sloan , director of sales for Positec ’ s Kress brand . “ Most companies have tried battery tools , and they want to know about battery runtime . We could engineer a battery to run for two hours , but it would be too heavy .”
One OPE dealer I surveyed added this comment to his response : “ I will be impressed when an F16 jet could perform with battery on par or better than today ’ s jet .” While innovators are developing and testing batterypowered jets , I doubt they will impress this anti-battery dealer anytime soon .
When comparing batteries to gasoline ( or jet fuel ), I need to cover the topics of energy density and motor efficiency , even if briefly . I ’ ll start by paraphrasing an ancient question : “ If an oxcart is carrying a load of grain to market , how far can it go before the oxen eat up all the cargo ( i . e ., their fuel )?” All vehicles that carry their own fuel face this problem . The grain as fuel has low energy density , and the oxen as a motor has low efficiency , but it ’ s all they had .
Fast forward and look at gasoline ; it has a significantly higher energy density than a lithiumion battery . Some of that difference is offset by the high efficiency of electric motors in converting stored energy stored into motion . Internal combustion engines are inefficient ; they ’ re unable to use all of gasoline ’ s inherent power . That inefficiency — plus the heat , noise , maintenance and exhaust — is why we ’ re talking about batteries today .
28 SportsField Management | December 2023 sportsfieldmanagementonline . com