For landscape professionals looking to cut high fuel costs, Electronic Fuel Injection (EFI) mowers can be a great starting point. Whether on your car or your mower, fuel injection engines use pressurized injectors to spray precise amounts of fuel into the air stream. This precision is an improvement over carburetors, which approximate the ratio of fuel to air. The result is increased performance and efficiency.
Exmark EFI mowers with E-Gov deliver enhanced performance. Because they don’t need a choke, mowers start quickly, whether the engine is hot or cold. Once running, they respond easily to changes in engine loads, like rough grass or tough uphill climbs. On mowers without EFI, engines can slow down, but with EFI and E-Gov, the engine maintains RPM and blade speed, keeping you running at peak performance without burning through extra fuel. If you mow a lot of hilly properties, EFI and E-Gov can help you mow more efficiently and with less fuel.
For landscape contractors running multiple machines all day, all season long, fuel is a top operating expense, likely your second largest expense after labor. EFI mowers can improve efficiency by 25% over traditional carburetors, drastically reducing fuel prices. When the U.S. average for gasoline is $2.10 a gallon, the savings may not seem like much. But gas prices can rise suddenly, in response to disasters or events elsewhere in the world. If your mowers are inefficient, an increase in fuel costs can mean fewer profits and thinner margins. (If you’re wondering how high gas prices can go, the highest price per gallon in the U.S. was $4.11, in July 2008, according to AAA.)
Fuel injection also means no carburetor adjustments and maintenance, reducing downtime and keeping your machines in the field longer.
So, while EFI is an additional up-front cost, the savings you’ll gain from improved performance and efficiency means you should save money in the long run. Exmark offers electronic fuel injection engines on many mowers, including Lazer-Z zero-turn mowers, Vantage stand-on mowers, and Turf Tracer walk-behinds.