Is EGO 56v platform worth the price in Europe?

[stefcl100]

Hello,

I am thinking about investing in a new OPE battery platform. After having spent countless hours reading reviews, watching videos and comparing stuff, I came to the conclusion that the EGO product line would be a solid choice.

If I were living in the US, I'd probably be on my way to the local DIY store to purchase the complete tool range. However, here in western Europe, EGO products are a bit harder to come by, they are a recent addition to the market and, more importantly, they are priced surprisingly high in comparison to the US. Put simply, we need to pay a lot more for less. As an example, the typical 190-200$ EGO ST-1500 trimmer would cost you about 240 EUR (~280 USD) and that's only for the bare tool without the kitted 2.5AH battery and charger. The LM2102E-SP mower with 7.5AH battery is about 950-1000 EUR, not doing the math but we understand it's a lot more than 600$, my dad paid this much for a Honda HRX mower. 

 

I have compared prices from various stores in Switzerland, France, and Germany, I checked SP-mowers, trimmers and blowers, EGO tools price tag seems to be 180% or 200% higher in Europe, except for the batteries which cost more or less the same. Granted, it's not always fair to compare prices across countries based on the currency exchange rate, but it may be legitimate to ask if EGO products can still be considered great value for money with their cost being above (or at least on par with) well-established brands such as Husqvarna, Stihl or even Makita? There is no easy answer I guess, what's your opinion on this? 

 

PS: I am not a native english speaker so please forgive eventual typos or weird grammar.

[Jronman]

@stefcl100 I find my EGO to be great. I only have the blower and hedge trimmer but I like them enough to invest in other EGO products in the future. Those prices seem very high. It would depend on the person if it would be worth it or not. I find EGO hard to get over here too. It is almost exclusive to Home Depot for in store offerings. It is the only big box store I know of that carries it in store. I found Amazon is a good place to get EGO if you are buying online. At the prices you have to pay in Europe, I don't know if you could justify the price. It might be worth looking into something like Makita x2 OPE or DeWALT's various OPE platforms. They both offer solid options. I don't know how they are priced in Europe or if they are even available but might be worth a try. 

[DR99]

Ego must be getting hammered on a tarrif or currency. Ego makes nice stuff but I would look around to see if another brand fits what you need. Also in general USA tool prices are way cheaper than the rest of the world.

 

[BMack37]

Geez, they're great tools but that's a hard pill to swallow. I must admit, I love my Ego but their build quality isn't at that price point...they use a lot of plastic, some of the knobs feel cheap. I've never heard of a failure but at that price point you expect a certain level of materials and feel.

 

What are their competitors' price points? Dan and Eric had some good head to head videos a couple years ago. I don't know, maybe that's just the going rate for OPE over there.

 

BTW, congrats on 7,000 posts @DR99!!

[stefcl100]

Thanks everybody for your replies. It's true that tool prices are usually lower in the US (and yes, it makes me mighty jealous sometimes). However, I have been following recent releases from other popular brands such as greenworks, dewalt, ryobi, makita or husqvarna, and the price differences did not look so huge to me, that 2x factor seems rather extreme.

 

I am definitely considering other options, Husqvarna 36v and Makita 2x18v seem to be nice choices too. Both systems give access to fairly good trimmers, blowers and chainsaws but they lack a good mower.

 

To be honest, what keeps the EGO system on my short list is their mower offering. I have a moderate-sized mountain yard with steep inclines and a few tough areas that leave little space for turning and maneuvering. Despite being self-propelled, my 42kg (96 lbs) honda mower can be really hard to push or pull around obstacles, I suppose a 33% lighter EGO LM 2024 E-SP could make my life easier.

I have yet to figure out if replacing it with an EGO would be a wise choice, I have not yet found videos showing how these perform on challenging yards. My current mower has proved to be a very reliable and powerful tool capable of enduring a lot of punishment so perhaps I should avoid locking myself into an "all or nothing" approach while moving to battery OPE.

 

Moreover, there may be new releases in the coming Spring (that may cause me to change my mind for the 200th time). I expected a good SP mower from Dewalt taking advantage of their higher voltage platform, but they have recently announced a 40v non-SP model. Some rumors are talking about a new OPE platform from Makita but there is not much information available... I guess I am going to wait a few months.

I love battery tools but things were a bit easier when could just cherry pick among manufacturers .

[D W]

I recently had to decide on what OPE platform to get into. Price was the main decision maker so I ended up just going with Dewalt 20V so I could use the batteries I already have. Ego is cheaper than Flexvolt in Australia and 20V is the cheapest. M18 is more expensive than Ego as well, but cheaper than Flexvolt. 

 

I still use a gas mower and I intend to keep it that way. Too many times I've had to mow through heavy wet grass. I don't think a cordless mower would handle that and also have good runtime without needing to fork out hundreds for batteries. If I were a pro the batteries might pay for themselves eventually, but they won't as a home owner (it's only about $1 of fuel, 26 times a year). 

 

The Ego mower sounds great, I'll have to go and watch a review. 

[BMack37]

That's really a tough one, I wonder how the battery life is on the SP mower on a challenging yard and how much torque the wheels have... @Eric - TIA when you guys tested it did you do it in that big ditch you guys have tested mowers in the past? What are your thoughts?

[kornomaniac]

On 1/5/2018 at 12:19 PM, stefcl100 said:

Thanks everybody for your replies. It's true that tool prices are usually lower in the US (and yes, it makes me mighty jealous sometimes). However, I have been following recent releases from other popular brands such as greenworks, dewalt, ryobi, makita or husqvarna, and the price differences did not look so huge to me, that 2x factor seems rather extreme.

 

I am definitely considering other options, Husqvarna 36v and Makita 2x18v seem to be nice choices too. Both systems give access to fairly good trimmers, blowers and chainsaws but they lack a good mower.

 

To be honest, what keeps the EGO system on my short list is their mower offering. I have a moderate-sized mountain yard with steep inclines and a few tough areas that leave little space for turning and maneuvering. Despite being self-propelled, my 42kg (96 lbs) honda mower can be really hard to push or pull around obstacles, I suppose a 33% lighter EGO LM 2024 E-SP could make my life easier.

I have yet to figure out if replacing it with an EGO would be a wise choice, I have not yet found videos showing how these perform on challenging yards. My current mower has proved to be a very reliable and powerful tool capable of enduring a lot of punishment so perhaps I should avoid locking myself into an "all or nothing" approach while moving to battery OPE.

 

Moreover, there may be new releases in the coming Spring (that may cause me to change my mind for the 200th time). I expected a good SP mower from Dewalt taking advantage of their higher voltage platform, but they have recently announced a 40v non-SP model. Some rumors are talking about a new OPE platform from Makita but there is not much information available... I guess I am going to wait a few months.

I love battery tools but things were a bit easier when could just cherry pick among manufacturers .

Only available info is a 58v battery. Starting with a trimmer/brush cutter and a dual battery backpack blower. More is not known yet of upcoming Makita OPE platform

[stefcl100]

On 1/7/2018 at 10:49 AM, kornomaniac said:

Only available info is a 58v battery. Starting with a trimmer/brush cutter and a dual battery backpack blower. More is not known yet of upcoming Makita OPE platform

 

I have not used many of their OPE tools but most Makita 2x18v tools have excellent ratings. They seem to get a lot of power out of their 36v system, It would be really interesting to see what kind of monsters they could come with on a larger 58v (perhaps 2x58v) platform. Probably overkill for most home user needs, but what's not to like about excessively powerful tools?

 

@D W Having to mow through relatively wet grass is a common issue here too, a battery mower could perhaps get the job done as long as you don't mulch. It is unfortunately difficult to confirm as most reviews are done on flat yards and under optimal conditions.

 

[kornomaniac]

On 1/10/2018 at 9:20 AM, stefcl100 said:

 

I have not used many of their OPE tools but most Makita 2x18v tools have excellent ratings. They seem to get a lot of power out of their 36v system, It would be really interesting to see what kind of monsters they could come with on a larger 58v (perhaps 2x58v) platform. Probably overkill for most home user needs, but what's not to like about excessively powerful tools?

 

@D W

 

 

Well you're thinking the wrong way there. Voltage doesn't matter all that much for modern brushless tools.  There's a bigger marketing advantage then a power advantage in going 54v ( like flexvolt ) or 58v ( upcoming Makita OPE) .

 

Modern brushless tools hardly give a fuck about what voltage they are getting. The total capacity/total energie your batteries have in more important and a better way to compare modern batteries.

 

Makita 18+18v ( gonna take 6 amp batteries as an example ) have a total capacity in watt hours of ( 36v x 6amp ) 216 Watt Hours.  

 

DeWalt flexvolt is 54v * 3 amp ( remember it's 54v nominal and not that 60v marketing ) which gives us 162 Watt Hours.

 

Milwaukee uses a 18v 9 amp battery which also gives us 162 Watt hours.

 

Unfortunately it's not as simple as I have said above because there's a few extra things to consider:

 

higher voltages ( like flexvolt ) give you some percent efficiency advantage. 

 

Bigger lithium cells ( like in the flexvolt 54v-3ah ) can cope with higher loads alot better.

 

And the Makita setup has 20 lithium cells that share the load where the Milwaukee or flexvolt setup have to share a load on 15 lithium cells thus improving efficiency under load.

 

TL;DR

 

As it currently stands I believe Makita and Flexvolt to be able to provide thesame performance in runtime. Makita from a higher capacity and more cells. DeWalt from higher voltage and bigger cells.

 

Milwaukee's Max output is a tad behind.

[stefcl100]

5 hours ago, kornomaniac said:

 

Well you're thinking the wrong way there. Voltage doesn't matter all that much for modern brushless tools.  There's a bigger marketing advantage then a power advantage in going 54v ( like flexvolt ) or 58v ( upcoming Makita OPE) .

 

I would actually agree with most of your post. 36v and 40v mean the same to me, just like 18v and so-called 20v "max". I also agree that watts per hour are the important thing.

 

However, my uneducated guess is that you are more likely to see the larger power demanding tools on higher voltage platforms because of the larger W/h potential. Not necessarily because higher voltage means better performance, but because tools need to be balanced in such way that they offer an adequate compromise between power and run time,given a fixed battery capacity. 

 

It's hard to imagine a dual stage snow blower based on a 20v system that would require 4 batteries to run (and 4 more if you need a replacement set) where a single 80v pack could achieve the same W/H potential. I am no expert, there may also be other technical obstacles with horizontal scaling that I am not aware of.

 

 

 

[kornomaniac]

5 hours ago, stefcl100 said:

 

I would actually agree with most of your post. 36v and 40v mean the same to me, just like 18v and so-called 20v "max". I also agree that watts per hour are the important thing.

 

However, my uneducated guess is that you are more likely to see the larger power demanding tools on higher voltage platforms because of the larger W/h potential. Not necessarily because higher voltage means better performance, but because tools need to be balanced in such way that they offer an adequate compromise between power and run time,given a fixed battery capacity. 

 

It's hard to imagine a dual stage snow blower based on a 20v system that would require 4 batteries to run (and 4 more if you need a replacement set) where a single 80v pack could achieve the same W/H potential. I am no expert, there may also be other technical obstacles with horizontal scaling that I am not aware of.

 

 

 

 

There is no larger w/h potential. Thats an illusion.

 

The only limit is the actual size you wanna make your battery. 

 

A flexvolt 54v/2 amp battery is thesame size as a Makita 18v/6 amp  or a Milwaukee 18v/6 amp. All three of these batteries  have 10 cells, thesame capacity of 108 watt hours and thesame psysical size.

 

Manufacturers can as easily make a 54v/10ah battery as they could make a 18v/30ah battery. Both those batteries would need 50 lithium cells of 3 amp each , both could have exactly thesame psysical dimensions and both batteries would have 540 Wh of energy available. 

 

 

Now I agree we'll see the larger power demanding tools on higher voltage platforms. But that not out of technological limitations  more because people believe that a 54 volt tool would be vastly superior to an 18v tool ( altho real life proof and my explanation above shows otherwise )

[stefcl100]

47 minutes ago, kornomaniac said:

Now I agree we'll see the larger power demanding tools on higher voltage platforms. But that not out of technological limitations  more because people believe that a 54 volt tool would be vastly superior to an 18v tool ( altho real life proof and my explanation above shows otherwise )

 

I guess I was among them, I knew that higher voltage was not guaranteed superiority,  but I was convinced that more volts would translate to more torque at the same speed. 

[kornomaniac]

In a brushed motor absolutely totally correct. Modern brushless motors not so much

 

 

[Jronman]

8 hours ago, kornomaniac said:

A flexvolt 54v/2 amp battery is thesame size as a Makita 18v/6 amp  or a Milwaukee 18v/6 amp. All three of these batteries  have 10 cells, thesame capacity of 108 watt hours and thesame psysical size.

actually the flex 54v/2 has 15 cells. the new 20v 6.0 has only 10 though.

[kornomaniac]

3 hours ago, Jronman said:

actually the flex 54v/2 has 15 cells. the new 20v 6.0 has only 10 though.

Ow oops I totally knew that. Brain fart

 

Thank jronman ! Indeed the new 20v Max/6ah is the better idea !

[stefcl100]

After having changed my mind 50 times between Makita, Husqvarna, Stihl and Ego, I finally decided to invest in Ego, starting with the LB5750 blower and ST1500 trimmer, along with a 6ah battery.

 

I am very satisfied with the blower, the trimmer is nice and silent but its cutting power suffers a bit in comparison with my gas powered Husqvarna 525 LK. It took me about 25% more time than usual to finish the trimming job.