- Honda is now assembling a new lineup of zero-turn electric lawn mowers in the United States
- ProZision riding mowers are assembled in North Carolina.
- Honda offers a larger battery pack than most plug-in hybrids offer today.
There was a time when electric cars were powered by simple batteries. They could barely get 60 miles on a full charge, and the cars themselves were ridiculously small and frustrating.
However, battery technology has come a long way, and you can now get an American-made zero-turn mower that has a larger battery than the first modern electric car capable of driving safely on the highway. It’s taken 15 years to get here, and things can only get better going forward.
Photo by: Honda
HondaAssembled in Swepsonville, North Carolina, the ProZision ZTR mower is powered by a 19.2-kilowatt-hour battery rated at 48 volts, allowing a run time of up to four and a half hours. It also contains no less than five electric motors, three for the blades and two for the drive.
Meanwhile, 2011 Mitsubishi iMiV It was powered by a 16 kWh battery that sent power to a 63 hp permanent magnet motor. It had an EPA-estimated range of 62 miles in the US and a top speed of 80 mph, making it the world’s first mass-market electric vehicle capable of handling highway speeds.
It can also carry four people in relative comfort, while Honda ProZision zero-turn mowers can only hold one person and have a top speed of 10 mph. But that’s not the point. The point is that it took a decade and a half to go from a 16-kilowatt-hour battery that took up a large portion of the car’s floor to one that stored more energy in a much smaller space.
Honda ProZision ZTR standalone electric mower
Photo by: Honda
To make things even more interesting, Honda is also offering a standalone version of the ProZision ZTR. It comes with four lidar sensors, five radars, and two GNSS receivers to enable automatic mowing, but only after the operator has run the track and saved it in the cloud. The mower then automatically reruns and optimizes the path for better turns and coverage.
This is all very nice, but it comes at a price. Pricing for the ProZision ZTR with a 54-inch blade starts at $32,999. The standalone version, which is only available with a 60-inch blade, doesn’t have a price yet, but it’s sure to be much more expensive.
