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Roboter oder Mensch?

Commercial mowing

Crew member on a commercial ride-on mower vs Autonomous commercial mower (lease)

Modellschätzungen von Whirrwork, keine Fakten. Methodik · Trefferbilanz

Mensch · Pro Jahr28.400 $Crew on a ride-on
Roboter · Pro Jahr40.379 $Lease an autonomous mower
Amortisationnie
Jahr der Kostenwendenicht bis 2035Base-case year (earliest to latest across scenarios)

On these numbers people are clearly cheaper. Even running flat out, one robot would not displace enough work to pay for itself.

Vereinigte Staaten · USD · BLS OEWS May 2025 national medians by SOC occupation

Mit eigenen Zahlen rechnen

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Arbeitsmenge
Annahme

Acres mowed per working day across your sites.

Annahme

Hours per day the mower may run.

Annahme

Working days per month.

Annahme

Mowing months per year.

Personal
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

BLS OEWS May 2025 national median hourly wage, SOC 37-3011.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Wages and salaries were 70.0% of total employer compensation cost for private industry workers in June 2026 (ECEC), so total cost = wage / 0.70.

ilostat.ilo.org

Nominal 4.4% a year, 2015-2025 (ILOSTAT hourly earnings).

Annahme

Acres per hour for an experienced operator on a commercial zero-turn mower.

Annahme

Your mower's fuel and ownership cost per hour. Default 0 ignores it.

Roboter
Annahme

Autonomous mower acres per hour relative to a person.

Scythe Robotics

Scythe M.52 Standard lease from $1,800/month (includes 40 autonomous acres; more acres cost more).

Annahme

Site mapping and crew training.

Annahme

Lease term in years.

Annahme

Availability.

Annahme

Work lost to faults.

Annahme

Trimming, slopes and obstacles a person still handles.

Annahme

Crew minutes per robot-hour: transport, supervision while it mows nearby.

Annahme

kWh per robot-hour.

Annahme

Electricity price per kWh (USD). Check your bill; energy is rarely a big line.

Finanzen
Annahme

Annual financing / discount rate. Nobody publishes yours; 8% is a round mid-2026 commercial borrowing guess.

Annahme

Years in the NPV comparison.

Annahme

Share of a human service price that is labour (rises with wages). Used to escalate and to adjust US service prices to other countries.

Annahme

Share of a robot service price that is labour (pilot, technician). The rest is equipment, which learning curves make cheaper.

Annahme

Share of a lease or RaaS fee that pays for hardware (learns down). The rest is service and support (moves with wages).

Download these results (CSV)

Ergebnisse

OptionPro MonatPro JahrPer unit (acre)EinmalkostenAmortisationBreak-even utilisation5-year NPV vs baseline
Mensch Crew on a ride-on Vergleichsbasis 2.367 $28.400 $13,45 $— — — —
Roboter Lease an autonomous mower 3.365 $40.379 $19,12 $1.000 $ nie not reachable
Utilisation 76 %
 -45.020 $

What moves the answer most

Each bar shows the 5-year NPV of the best robot option when one input moves to the low or high end of its range, with the rest held at your values.

5-year NPV vs baseline: Lease an autonomous mower5-year NPV vs baseline: Lease an autonomous mowerRobot output vs a personlow value: 0.5 → -152.700 $high value: 1 → -30.840 $Supervisionlow value: 10 → -22.433 $high value: 60 → -135.369 $Workloadlow value: 5 → -71.126 $high value: 40 → -118.142 $Human equipment cost per hourlow value: 0 → -45.020 $high value: 15 → 856 $Human output per hourlow value: 1.2 → -103.957 $high value: 3 → -59.938 $Active months per yearlow value: 6 → -56.208 $high value: 11 → -28.237 $Lease per robot per monthlow value: 1800 → -45.020 $high value: 2200 → -64.747 $Hourly wagelow value: 15.056000000000001 → -54.389 $high value: 22.584 → -35.651 $Work that stays humanlow value: 0.1 → -36.069 $high value: 0.4 → -53.970 $-45.020 $0low valuehigh valueSource: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/commercial-mowing/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.

Cost per unit to 2035

Real terms (today's money). Robot hardware follows Wright's law; wages follow each country's history. Shaded band: robots-slow to robots-fast scenarios. Modellschätzungen von Whirrwork, keine Fakten.

ChartPersonalkosten pro Einheit (Basis), Roboterkosten pro Einheit (Basis), Roboterkosten pro Einheit (Roboter: schneller Fortschritt), Roboterkosten pro Einheit (Roboter: langsamer Fortschritt). Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/commercial-mowing/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.0,00 $5,00 $10,00 $15,00 $20,00 $2026202720282029203020312032203320342035USD / acrescenario rangePersonalkosten pro Einheit (Basis)Roboterkosten pro Einheit (Basis)Roboterkosten pro Einheit (Robote…Roboterkosten pro Einheit (Robote…Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/commercial-mowing/). Modelled estimat…

Jahr der Kostenwende: nicht bis 2035

What the spreadsheet misses

Sicherheit
Mower injuries and heat stress are real; a robot takes the operator off the seat.
Qualität
Consistent stripes; trimming still manual.
Flexibilität
Crews move between sites fast; robots need transport and maps.
Edge cases
Public parks with people and dogs need supervision.
Customer experience
Quiet electric mowers allow early or late work.
Jobs and redeployment
Crews shift to trimming, planting and supervision; labour shortages are the usual driver.
Regulierung
Check local rules for unattended machines in public spaces.

Siehe auch

Quellen auf dieser Seite

Hinweise und Quellen sind auf Englisch; maßgeblich ist die englische Fassung.

  1. Scythe M.52 autonomous commercial mower lease from $1,800/month (Standard, incl. 40 autonomous acres) Scythe Robotics, 2026-10 · vendor
  2. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (median hourly wage by occupation) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025-05
  3. Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026: wages and salaries 70.0% of private-industry compensation (series CMU2020000000000P) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2026-06
  4. Mean nominal hourly earnings of employees by sex and occupation (ISCO-08), DF_EAR_EHRA_SEX_OCU_CUR_NB ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization), from national labour force and earnings surveys, 2025
  5. Labour cost levels by NACE Rev. 2 activity (lc_lci_lev): Germany 2022-2025, total labour cost vs wages and salaries per hour Eurostat, 2025
  6. Rates and thresholds for employers 2025 to 2026 (employer Class 1 NIC 15% above £5,000) HM Revenue & Customs, 2025-04-06
  7. 令和6年賃金構造基本統計調査 (Basic Survey on Wage Structure 2024), table 1 by occupation Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan (via e-Stat), 2024-06
  8. Average monthly earnings of employees by sex and economic activity, DF_EAR_EMTA_SEX_ECO_CUR_NB ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization), 2022
  9. Average annual wage of employed persons in urban units in 2024 (by position and by region) National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2025-05-20
  10. Euro foreign exchange reference rates (cross rates to USD), via Frankfurter European Central Bank, 2026-10-23
  11. Wright, T. P. (1936). Factors affecting the cost of airplanes. Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, 3(4), 122-128 Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, 1936
  12. Nagy, B., Farmer, J. D., Bui, Q. M., & Trancik, J. E. (2013). Statistical basis for predicting technological progress. PLoS ONE, 8(2), e52669 (62 technologies; Wright's law among the best hindcasters; errors grow with horizon) PLoS ONE, 2013