Battery powered lawn mowers?! Yes, to Stihl RMA 510

[NWPilgrim]

I recently scoured the Web for info on battery powered mowers and settled on the Stihl 36v RMA 510. Other top contenders in my search were the Snapper 82v XD, The EGO 56v 21" push, and the Echo 58v 21" push.

WHY BATTERY POWERED?
In the past I had a much larger lawn and sometimes let it get way to long and rough and ended up with a 6.5HP Honda mower that cuts through nearly everything and does a great job. But this year I downsized the lawn area, dug it out, leveled it more, hauled in topsoil and planted nice new grass. The gas mower is way over kill and frankly I am moving away from gas engined tools to battery powered ones, primarily Milwaukee. Li-Ion battery and brushless motor technology make these tools very powerful for the homeowner, handyman and sometimes even professional users. I've been very pleased with my Milwaukee drills, drivers (12v and 18v), impact wrenches, Hackzall, angle grinder, and this year added the string trimmer and hedge trimmer. Fantastic quality and performance. After having to replace worn out fuel lines in my Honda tiller I got to thinking how much simpler the battery tools are for occasional use than gas engine ones. That's when I sold my Husqvarna trimmer and replaced it with the Milwuakee trimmer and am very happy with its power and endurance.

WHY STIHL FOR BATTERY POWER AT ONLY 36v?
I really wanted to wait for Milwaukee to release a mower in their new outdoor battery tool line-up, but no news of that on the horizon. EGO seems to own the majority of the market for battery powered tools, but they are not using brushless motors on any but their $750 dual battery mower. Echo looked pretty good and has a lot of battery outdoor tools but there were reports of the switch failing to turn off or not work at all within the first few months. Snapper looked very good and would be my very close second choice and I would probably be perfectly happy with it. But, I am trying to simplify the number of brands of tools I own so I have fewer places to go for parts, service and accessories. And having experience with Stihl chainsaws I figure I would rather get into the Stihl line of battery and gas outdoor tools rather than Snapper. If I was looking at just the mower then the Snapper would have been my choice. At 36v the Stihl is one of the lowest voltage mowers out there, but my experience with Milwaukee is that lower voltage tools (18v) can be designed to perform as well or better than much higher voltage tools. And Stihl does know how to build durable, hard working outdoor tools.

HOW DOES IT PERFORM?
It only took about 10 minutes to cut the new lawn of 1,000 sqft, and another 10 to go over a rough area that will be graveled over this fall for a driveway extension. The battery went from four LEDs to three in that 20 minutes. It took about 40 minutes to charge it from the one LED from the box to the full four LEDs. I had it on full speed mode, i.e. the ECO mode was switched off. So you should be able to easily mow 4,000-5,000 sqft on a single AP300 battery, and recharge in in 45-60 minutes. I think the manual stating 75 minutes to recharge includes cool down time if it is being worked very hard in hot temps.

The grass was about 4" high and I cut to 3" and it looks very even and well cut. I chose to bag this first cut because it was slightly damp from a light sprinkling. It filled up only about 1/3 of the bag. The overall design of the plastic deck and the blade looks like it would mulch very well, and I will try that out next week on a drier day. The mower is light and folds flat for vertical storage, and has an easy to use one-lever height adjustment. One thing about the Stihl I very much like is that you can switch on or off the load-sensing ECO mode, whereas most battery mowers are only in the equivalent of the ECO mode, and there is a second or so delay between encountering high/thick grass and motor wind up. ECO mode helps extend battery duration by slowing the motor down on light/no load conditions, then ramping it up when it senses a load. But with a lawn under 4,000 sqft I don't see a need for the ECO mode.

The RMA 510 costs about $580. You can get a VERY nice Honda gas mower for that or less. But, with battery power no hearing protection is needed, it is less annoying to neighbors so you could mow at earlier and later times than you might with a gas mower, and it requires no engine maintenance, oil changes, sparkplugs, or gas cans. It is pretty quiet. Not "mow at 4am" quiet but certainly "mow even if neighbors are having patio party" quiet. Cutting my fescue/micro clover lawn did not seem to even phase the Stihl mower. In the rough area I ran over some thick grass clumps and it chopped right through the thick matted clusters without missing a beat. It picked up most of the maple leaves on the lawn (bagging) but not every single particle of them. Not as good as my 6.5HP Honda mower on sucking up leaves, but pretty close.

Overall, after the first mowing I am very pleased with the Stihl 510 mower and it reinforces the appeal of battery tools for me over corded or gas engine ones. With several batteries I can run my Milwaukee tools all day long on decking, auto mechanics, and handyman or light construction level jobs. The Milwaukee trimmers are likewise impressive in the yard. Stihl I think lives up to its outdoor reputation with this 510 mower in good design, robust construction, and top tier performance. I have to admit feeling like a nerd buying this from my nearest Stihl dealer who is mostly a John Deere farm implement dealer. I think this might be the first battery power tool they have ever sold (not in stock, nobody knew nothin'). At least I loaded it into my Dodge diesel truck and not a Pruis or Fiat!

Anybody else try a battery mower recently? Or is everyone moving on to gas turbine and diesel-electric mowers?

[SomeOtherGuy]

Anybody else try a battery mower recently? Or is everyone moving on to gas turbine and diesel-electric mowers?

Positronium, it's the only way to fly.

More seriously - I've had two battery-electric lawnmowers, one which I still own (Lowes Kobalt brand, it's just a rebadged ?Greenworks?). The technology is mature for smaller lawns and easier mowing conditions. I hate operating and maintaining small gas engines, so I go electric whenever possible. I also have a battery-electric weed trimmer and chainsaw, which are so convenient to use. We still have the larger gas chainsaw for serious jobs, but it's 10x more effort and only makes sense for "I'm going to cut and buck an entire tree" type work.

[1168]

I’ve been using a Ryobi, and enjoy being able to listen to educational materials with earbuds while I mow.

[markm]

I'd rather wear a dress.

If I could get a mower with TWO gas engines on it, I would. There's ALMOST nothing more philosophically repulsive to me than an electric mower.

[MegademiC]

I'd rather wear a dress.

If I could get a mower with TWO gas engines on it, I would. There's ALMOST nothing more philosophically repulsive to me than an electric mower.

As someone who mows his lawn with a weedwhacker, I agree.
The noise and feel of gasoline engines are therapeutic.

[AKDoug]

I'm a Stihl dealer. I bought one for my wife and so we could use it as a demo for potential customers. We've sold a few of them. My neighbors are always asking why my lawn looks great. My answer is always "estrogen". When they look puzzled I explain that my wife mows the lawn. She loves the thing and doesn't miss the gas mower one bit. No issue at all doing a 4000 sqft lawn on one battery. We're planting another 20,000 sqft next year, so I guess I'll let her pick out a rider.

[NWPilgrim]

Unfortunately the Stihl dealers do not seem to promote the battery products much but they came out in the top tier in my search and comparisons. Since they are not sold through a big box store or Amazon there is very little consumer experience to read and even YouTube has only a handful of reviews. Most battery mower reviews focus on EGO, Greenworks, Ryobi, Kobalt, Worx, and maybe some with DeWalt, Makita, Snapper or Echo.

On the upside, Stihl seems to have applied their landscape tool experience to good effect in the RMA 510. Some companies using plastic decks are too flimsy, but Stihl’s is sturdy. A Stihl chainsaw has steel or aluminum where need but much of the case is plastic and those buggers can take years of being dropped and bashed. Their mower feels like it is built similarly. And the cut performance is excellent as one would expect from a Stihl. So although kind of a bastard child in terms of marketing and sales, at least the engineering is pure Stihl. Many of the other top mowers in my list had at least one compromised factor on an otherwise great mower: brushed motor, flimsy deck, flimsy electrical switch, great bagging but poor mulching, sub par battery or charger, four wheel adjusters instead of one, etc. Stihl was solid on all accounts.

My 10 yr old grandson is starting to do most of the mowing so I feel much more comfortable having him use this battery mower rather than gas engine one. That’s great that as a dealer you are actually using this mower. That should be extremely helpful to interested customers. Most of the farm implements at my Stihl dealer are bigger than my lawn!! They do have a lot of Stihl trimmers, blowers and chainsaws on the shelf but most of the mowers are Honda.

[flenna]

My father had a Black and Decker electric lawnmower when I was a kid. I hated that thing, I was always afraid I was going to run over the 100' extension cord. Anyway, I agree with markm.

[Business_Casual]

I'd rather wear a dress.

If I could get a mower with TWO gas engines on it, I would. There's ALMOST nothing more philosophically repulsive to me than an electric mower.

Then you’d have to wear a tutu to use mine. It’s a Sun Joe, from Walmart for $119 on sale. But I don’t mind, I only have 8k sq. ft. and most of that is house and drive. There’s diminishing returns for the hassle of gas for me.

[Adrenaline_6]

Never tried an electric mower and in my current situation, never will. An electric edger might work, but I already have my 2-stroke Echo Pro Attachment that can change into a edger, wheedwhacker, and I need to buy the pruner attachment with extension for it. I use a zero turn Gravely residential line mower for my lawn and still think it takes too damn long to work on my lawn, especially in the Florida Summer. For me, nothing about yard work is therapeutic, it just sucks donkey balls and is taking time away from me doing something I'd enjoy. The money saved is what keeps me doing it.

The mower has paid for itself many times over the years by not paying someone else to do it, but if and when it dies, I will be looking to buy a used commercial mower that can do the job 3 times faster. Screw yard work.