A matter of convenience

I always told myself I would put fuel stabilizer in my lawn mower and snow blower before I stowed each away for their respective off-seasons. And I swore to myself I would start them up a couple of times during that off season to keep everything ready. But, there I was, trying to start my gas snow blower up at 7 a.m. as a snowstorm was covering my driveway and sidewalk more and more.

So I made the switch to battery for those two machines a few years ago and haven’t had any complaints. I didn’t do it for political reasons, nor did I do too much research on how it reduces emissions or where the battery goes when it dies. I simply made the switch for the same reason a lot of people make decisions for — convenience.

That’s also a reason business owners make changes. They like to make a job as easy as possible for their employees, and some see a switch to battery doing just that. In our 2025 State of the Battery-Powered Equipment market report, ease of use was the second most selected behind decibel level when asked about a positive feature of battery-powered equipment. Our research also shows that landscapers are continuing to invest in the equipment.

This year, when asked if they were currently using battery-powered equipment, 71% said they were compared to 65% last year. When asked what percentage of customers have requested battery-powered crews, the higher percentage options increased slightly as well.

Back to me, I haven’t had a real bad snowstorm here since owning my snow blower. So, I may have a different opinion of my battery-powered snow blower as I am struggling to keep up with that. And with the mower, the first few mows of the year take a couple of days to finish my average size yard. The long, soggy grass drains my two batteries pretty quickly, and then there is the wait to charge.

But those are the pros and cons I weighed on my decision, like many of you are doing right now by making an initial investment in batteries, or investing more in this technology.