Noise ordinances, not carbon, are writing the spec for electric garden tools

Cities around the US are banning petrol landscaping tools or encouraging electric alternatives, and according to the BBC noise is one of the main reasons ^[1]. That detail decides who sells what: the specification going into municipal ordinances is a sound level rather than a carbon number, and the payback argument put to landscapers is permission to work at times when residents demand quiet ^[1][3].

Carbon reduction is in the pitch, but in the BBC's account it sits alongside lower vibration and less operator exposure to pollution as an additional benefit rather than the trigger ^[2]. Longer working hours are the line item a crew boss can price ^[3].

The compliance market is pulling in entrants from outside the tool trade. Whisper Aero, a US aerospace start-up whose main business is electric propulsion systems for aircraft, concluded in 2022, after the Covid-19 pandemic made many people more sensitive to noise and a couple of years of research and development, that its aerospace-grade fans would work well in leaf blowers ^[5]. "Our technology is cleaner, quieter and more efficient than other air-moving technologies that exist today," says Andrew Terajewicz, the company's director of air management, "And the leaf blower is the perfect mix of this" ^[6]. Online pre-orders for its handheld blower started this year, priced at the high end of electric leaf blowers, a category that is often already more expensive than petrol ^[8]. The battery lasts up to 50 minutes at full power ^[7], and the company has had to scale up manufacturing volume to move into consumer products ^[8].

The professional gap is measurable. Terajewicz says heavy-duty petrol backpack blowers reach a maximum blowing force of about 50 newtons, while the handheld Whisper Aero typically runs at about half that, though it can go higher ^[10]. That implies roughly 25 newtons in normal use ^[24]. Petrol machines are simply more powerful, which means quicker work ^[23].

Where the ordinance does not bite, crews vote with their kit. Carlos Camarena, a supervisor at a California landscaping company, told the BBC that "for us, it's a little bit hard to use electric" ^[11]; his firm uses electric tools in cities with ordinances banning petrol and sticks to petrol everywhere else ^[12]. His batteries last about 30 minutes, and the crew keeps six charging at any time, each taking about 45 minutes to fill ^[13]. That is 1.5 minutes of charging for every minute of full-throttle work ^[25].

Then there is the balance sheet. One landscaper estimates it would cost his business around $10,000 (£7,540) to convert all its equipment ^[14], and the subsidies and rebates some local governments offer may not cover the gap ^[15]. Sole proprietors with one vehicle and little space to charge and store batteries face a harder version of the same problem ^[16], plus the weight of multi-battery tools and the cost of accessories to carry them ^[17].

The incumbents are still committing. Stihl, headquartered in Germany, wants battery-powered equipment to be 35% of sales by next year and 80% by 2035 ^[18]. It is on track to hit what the BBC calls its 2027 goal in Europe, while US sales have been slower ^[19], and it opened its first plant making only batteries and tools in Romania in 2025 ^[20].

Worth watching: whether Whisper Aero ships the professional backpack blower it says it is developing ^[9], whether US ordinance coverage spreads faster than Stihl's lagging US battery sales ^[19], and whether any rebate scheme gets close to the $10,000 conversion figure ^[14][15].