BETTING ON
BETTER BATTERIES
Mean Green Products adds lithium battery to commercial electric mower mix
The benefits of powering ma- chines by batteries — most notablylowemissions —have
for the most part been overshadowed
by drawbacks such as cost, battery
weight and shorter operating times.
Mean Green Products has been
working at overcoming those obstacles since 2008. Soon after beginning
business, the Okean, Ohio, company
released its first battery-powered lawn
mower for the residential market and
expanded into the commercial market
in 2011. Those 33 in. walk-behind and
60 in. zero-turn models were powered by industrial grade wet-cell, lead
acid batteries.
Now, Mean Green is boosting its
lineup by introducing lithium-based
batteries to the power equation.
Lithium batteries add power, endurance, and reliability to the mowers,
said Joe Conrad, president of Mean
Green Products.
Lithium batteries will power the
company’s WBX- 33 commercial walk-behind mower, as well as the two commercial CXR zero-turn mowers the
company offers. The CXR come with
either 52 or 60 in. cutting decks.
Mean Green chose the lithium
LiFePo4 cells for its Lithium Energy
Modules (LEMs) because of their
safety, dense energy storage, light
weight, and extreme charge cycle life,
Conrad said.
The custom-made 36 V LEMs are
installed in cases with individual bat-
tery management systems to control
the functions of each lithium cell in the
module, the company said. The bat-
tery management system ensures the
lithium cells maintain proper voltage
and current output without the dangers
of overheating or short circuiting.
Mean Green Products, a man-
ufacturer of electric mowers,
is introducing to its lineup
commercial-grade mowers
powered by lithium-based
batteries. 30 DIESEL PROGRESS NORTH AMERICAN EDITION February 2013
