Calm down… I know. But you need to hear me out. YES, this is THE Milwaukee lawn mower. It’s Red. It says M18 and even FUEL on the side. It’s powerful, and has many features you’ve been asking for. But… You know that Milwaukee M18 FUEL 21” push mower that you and I have been asking Milwaukee to make, for the last 4 years? This aint it. Let’s go.
Now before we get to the problem, let me tell you exactly what this mower is. It’s a true 21”, M18 Self Propelled mower. It can Mulch, bag, or use this really cool side discharge. It can adjust from 1” to 4” in height, using a single lever, which is the ONLY way to do this.
The rear wheeled drive Self Propelled system has a clever ergonomic handle that makes it easy to vary the speed with either your thumbs or your palms. The safety bar sits in a recessed channel on the handle for a more comfortable grip. It folds up very fast, taking up only 2 cubic feet of floor space.
It has led lights on the front and side, so you can mow at night. It comes with 2 batteries and requires both to be installed in order to run. The two batteries they include are M18 12ah monsters, the biggest Milwaukee makes… at the moment. And with both of them fully charged, you’ll be able to mow for 60 minutes, or half an acre. Yeah. And all of this can be yours, for only $1,000. But why? Is there really a $700 Milwaukee tax on this thing? Not quite.
There are two reasons. First, those batteries. They cost $250 a piece so there’s half your cost already. But the other reason, is this the power. This mower is more powerful than any push mower we’ve ever seen. It will get it’s blade up to full speed in less than a second, and it does that in tall grass. And when you have that much power and torque, you can do things like offer the best cut quality, every single time.
When you run this thing through a patch of tall grass, it doesn’t leave clumps behind it like other mulching mowers will. It just leaves perfection. And no, this isn’t even it’s final form. Milwaukee added a mode that should have been called turbo, but I guess their EGO wouldn’t let them. Wink. So they call it High-Lift mode. When you turn it on, the blades jump from 2,800 to 3,300 rpm, and suddenly you can coast through leaf covered yards, and leave nothing behind. Of course that mode will also melt the batteries in only 40 minutes, and presumably only ⅓ of an acre.
But Why? Why such ridiculous power, obviously at the cost of runtime. How am I supposed to mow my two acres without a 2 grand in batteries? Well, I’m not. As I said in the beginning. This mower, is not for me…. Milwaukee made it specifically for a professional landscaper. Let me tell you why.
See, when EGO pulled out of Home Depot, there were theories that this was Milwaukee’s opportunity to go big in OPE and take on EGO. But unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know Ryobi is already throwing new tools at that space as quickly as they can. They’re bringing out OPE with huge EGO sized stats.
No, Milwaukee is on a different mission, one to make the absolute best battery powered OPE for Pros. And apparently this is just the very first step of a major march into the industry. They said we can expect 20 new tools in this new OPE line, this year, and hundreds in the next 3 years. And I’m assuming all of the tools will be designed around the day to day work of a landscaper, just like this one.
A Pro doesn’t need a battery powered push mower to cover more than a half acre, because they’re only using it for trimming and details after the bulk of the job is done with a $20,000 zero turn. What they DO want, is power. There’s a reason they buy that $20,000 zero turn, instead of a $2,000 cub cadet. They don’t have time for clogged decks, or poorly cut grass that has to be mowed twice. Their mower needs to do an excellent job in a single pass, and nothing can slow it down.
THIS is that mower. This thing doesn’t mow lawns, it prints money. And if you have the customers lined up, this mower aims to get the job done every single time, without the headaches of gas, oil, and maintenance that cost you time and money. If you’re a professional landscaper, and you’ve been asking Milwaukee for a pro mower… this is it.
Now don’t get me wrong. I know full well that there WILL be some of you amateurs like me, who drop $1000 on this bad boy anyways, and proudly march it back and forth in front of your house, pointing out the perfect cut to your neighbors. That is, unless your neighbor bought an EGO, which in that case he’ll already be done cutting his grass, and taking his wife to brunch with the $300 bucks he saved.
And I’m anxious to see in the coming weeks, what professional landscapers will say about this monster of power. But there’s no avoiding it. We asked Milwaukee for a mower for years, and they finally responded, by making it for someone else. But the people they did make this for, are likely to love it.
Sarah is back! She helped me film a bit of this today just before the snow storm came in. She’ll be online tonight for our Production Crew Live show where we pick this week’s show content. And of course she’ll finally join me this Friday for the Power Tool Week In Review, where we’re going to reveal the 3rd shelf of power tools for our monthly giveaway. I’ll see you then.
