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Electrify Everything: Ryobi Riding Mower

April 29, 2022

With Mother’s Day just around the corner, there’s one thought dominating the minds of suburban dads everywhere: it’s time to mow. And, thanks to companies like Ryobi, even your lawnmower is an EV!

Electric riding mowers are an often-overlooked part of the EV landscape, but they make perfect sense. From a purely environmental perspective, small engines like the ones found in generators or lawnmowers have worse emissions than cars by orders of magnitude— and that’s not just carbon emissions. Lawnmowers also produce noise pollution, which is bad for wildlife, kids, and neighbors.

Besides all that, the instant, 0 rpm torque of electric motors that makes electric cars and e-bikes so much fun also makes mowing the lawn a lot more fun than you probably remember.

The 48V Ryobi mower shown, above, uses dual spools of trimmer cord to make the equivalent of a 38″ deck, which would still be overkill for a lot of lawns— but it’s a long way off from being the company’s flagship electric riding mower.

That honor goes to the Ryobi 80V HP Lithium Electric Zero Turn riding mower. First revealed in February of this year, delivers 35 HP from its 80V electric system for, what Ryobi calls, “true gas performance” for up to 4 acres of mowing on a single charge. And that can be extended with the use of Ryobi’s modular, swappable 40V battery packs.

You can check out the 80V in the official launch video, below, then let us know how you’re planning to tackle a summer of outdoor chores in the comments section at the bottom of the page. And, yes: we’ve already thought about racing these at Electrify Expo, Austin in November!