Makita U.S.A. hosted a booth at the Electric Power Research Institute’s Electrification 2018 International Conference & Exposition held in Long Beach, California August 20-23, 2018. With over 1,700 attendees, engaging speakers and panels, and a show floor chock full of the latest technology, PUF’s Steve Mitnick caught up with Dennis Stauch, VP and General Manager for Outdoor Power Equipment – Makita U.S.A.
Dennis Stauch: This is Makita Outdoor Power Equipment. Makita has been traditionally known for electric tools.
This product here is designed to replace gas engines in the market for the commercial lawn and landscape. It’s usually for the guy who makes money, who needs products that runs every single day.
There are multiple manufacturers that have this kind of product, but the advantage of the Makita product is that we have tried and tested lithium ion battery technology that is a solution for a lot of different things.
For example, it’s for your vacuums in your home, lights, and all kinds of lifestyle types of products. We've taken the same battery platform that you can use on over three hundred pieces of equipment and now adapted it to some of the highest quality commercial-level outdoor power equipment for leaf blowing; chainsaws; for the commercial guy who's up in a bucket – who doesn't need to do the recoil starter anymore – no emissions; string trimmers, as well as hedge trimmers. So, it’s a whole line up of products that really run off the same battery platform.
Basically, what happens here is your operational costs go to zero. In the past, and what the guys do now in the field, is that they have gasoline equipment. You basically fill up a five-gallon gas can in the morning and then run it all day long. Now you don't have to do that with cordless equipment.