Episode 408 | Autonomous Mowers and the American Manufacturing Edge
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About this episode
Michael Brandt, Co-Founder and CEO, RC Mowers joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss autonomous mowers and how they unlock scale for an industry that is labor constrained.
In the landscape industry, turnover is structural, the work is hard, and skilled employees tend to stay away, making this an ideal industry to deploy autonomy that unlocks scale and frees up human resources to focus on the work robots cannot do yet.
The perception stack on the autonomous mowers is LiDAR-first, enabling the mowers to operate day and night with equal capability. Airport operators were the first to recognize what that unlocks, deploying autonomous mowers at night when runways close, expanding the operational window on land that never stops needing maintenance.
As private equity continues to roll up the landscape industry, the use of autonomous mowers is growing as they solve the labor problem and unlock growth that the old model cannot deliver.
The future of autonomy in landscaping will not be won by the operators waiting for the price to come down. It will be won by the operators who are already three years ahead, deploying autonomous mowers today and building the next generation of the landscape industry.
Episode Chapters
00:00 AUTNMY AI
00:36 Founding of RC Mowers
05:56 Landscape Labor Crisis
09:21 Autonomous Mower Stack
11:54 Deploying Autonomous Mowers
20:46 Autonomous Mowing at Airports
25:47 Autonomous Mowing
32:11 Private Equity Landscape Industry Roll Up
38:12 Autonomy-First Landscape Company
46:48 American Manufacturing in Green Bay
50:54 The Future of RC Mowers
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