Over the last decade, the shift to battery power in handheld equipment marked a pivotal moment for landscape professionals. It solved increasing legislative restrictions and client demand for quiet, emissionless landscape services.
However, manufacturers specializing in commercial-grade handheld tools face the ongoing challenge of developing innovative battery-powered solutions that rival the performance and durability of gas-powered equipment. Landscape professionals require lighter, more powerful and more durable handheld tools, and the shift to zero-emission electric equipment impacts each of these requirements.
“Power to weight is at the core of our product development,” says Mike Poluka, segment product manager for Stihl. “But we’re looking at designing and developing (handheld) tools that are the total package.”
“When it comes down to it, the issue is does your battery give you the power that you need to get through the day,” says Todd Zimmerman, vice president of product development at Kress.
Protecting power
Pro-grade handheld landscape equipment design is tried and true, and manufacturers are not focused on reinventing proven products like stick edgers, string trimmers and blowers. Instead, equipment manufacturers have emphasized improving and getting the most out of their power sources — lithium-ion battery packs.
“What we’re all trying to do is protect the (power) cells and make sure they don’t overheat while getting the optimal performance out of them,” Zimmerman says. “High heat is detrimental to lithium-ion batteries, resulting in decreased power capacity and reduced performance over time.”
A lithium-ion battery by itself provides around 75 to 80 percent of its total power to compensate for this heat issue. Handheld manufacturers are developing technology around lithium-ion batteries that gets that power output to as close to 100 percent as possible.
In addition to power output, battery management is essential to landscape professionals. Work crews, especially larger ones, must manage numerous batteries to get through the workday, which is inconvenient and inefficient. Handheld tool manufacturers aim to provide on-the-go charging solutions to address this issue, as well as battery packs with longer life cycles and shorter charge times.
“At the end of the day, we’re listening to landscapers to truly understand what the challenges are so we can come back and provide solutions that help them overcome those challenges and provide operators (handheld tools) with the same power, the same look, feel, fit and finish as their current gas product,” Poluka says.
Future development
Battery technology will continue to evolve and be the focus of innovation. Handheld tool manufacturers anticipate this tech’s rapid improvement, allowing batteries to pack more power without increasing in size.
This means that tools powered by these batteries can be lighter, more ergonomic and more powerful, potentially rivaling or surpassing the performance of gas-powered tools, which remains the benchmark.
“When Stihl introduced its first lithium-ion battery pack, it had about 80 watt-hours of capacity,” Poluka says. “Today, we have that same cartridge-type battery with over 300 watt-hours of energy packed inside. I can’t help but imagine (battery technology) will be on that similar trend where contractors will continue to get more energy from the same sized (battery).”
Handheld tool manufacturers may find inspiration in EV technology and how batteries power electric cars and trucks.
“(Kress’) nano-pack battery is a lithium-ion cell using a tabless design … which electric vehicles use,” Zimmerman says.
Tabless battery design reduces the inner resistance of each power cell by as much as half, which leads to less heat generation and longer runtimes — both ideal qualities for handheld equipment.
“What everyone is trying to do with this new technology, no matter what that technology is, is trying to reduce the resistance of the cell, reduce heat buildup and allow that cell to stay cool for a longer period of time,” Zimmerman adds.
