By Toshifumi Sekitsuka Tokyo, Oct. 27 (Jiji Press)–Across America, the whir of lawn mowers is a soundtrack of suburban life. Even so, few homeowners and landscapers may pause to think about the decades of engineering, unconventional marketing and persistence that helped make one of Honda Motor Co.’s most recognizable power products a fixture on American lawns. With 2026 marking 50 years since Honda began researching the lawn mower market, engineers and others at the Japanese company recall how its products came to take root in the U.S. market. Originality from 1st Model In the 1970s, Honda was looking to expand its power equipment business beyond Japan, into the vast U.S. and European markets, where lawn mowers were common and deemed promising targets for the company. In 1976, Honda engineers started traveling across Europe and the United States to study not only how grass was cut there but also how people used their mowers. At the time, the power products maker from the Asian country had already established its presence in the United States with its automobiles and motorcycles. Two years later, Honda introduced the HR21, its first walk-behind lawn mower model, in Japan and also exported it to the United States and other overseas markets. The machine was equipped with what Honda describes as the world’s first blade brake clutch system, which made the cutting blade stop when the operator released the control lever even though the engine continued running. Motorcycle Dealers Give Mowers Foothold Winning customers in the United States, however, proved hard at a time when established American brands had already put down deep roots. “In those days, lawn mowers were very cheap, under 100 dollars, usually about 79 dollars or 80 dollars,” said John Stevens, American Honda Motor Co.’s vice president for power sports & products business & sales. Honda’s products were “a little bit more expensive,” he said. Rather than competing head to head with U.S. lawn mower makers through sales at traditional retailers, American Honda chose a different path. “Honda came to the market and initially sold power equipment through our motorcycle dealers, small motorcycle shops throughout the country,” Stevens explains. “So we didn’t have access to the same market they did.” “People knew Honda quality from our motorcycles. They would buy Honda lawn mowers and would pay the extra for the Honda lawn mower because they knew it was like their CB750,” he adds, referring to Honda’s iconic motorcycle model. This strategy paid off and became one of Honda’s strengths. Providing reliable after-sales service from the outset helped build Honda’s reputation for quality. Stevens says motorcycle dealers had well-established service departments, with strong after-sales support and parts support for the products they sold. Local sales eventually led Honda to another long-term commitment: local output. “After initially exporting lawn mowers from Japan, we localized production,” says Hitoshi Abe, chief engineer at Honda’s Japanese headquarters in charge of the electrified power products lineup. “The move follows Honda’s long-standing ‘manufacture where you sell’ philosophy.” Just as winning customers tested American Honda’s sales strategy, developing a mower that could satisfy them was a test for its engineers. Mowers across the States For Dean Hartley, American Honda’s senior chief engineer in charge of developing walk-behind lawn mowers, who has 35 years of engineering experience, no project better captured that challenge than the HRX, Honda’s flagship mower series, which first hit the U.S. market in 2004. Grass always changes in line with its wetness and dryness as well as the humidity, Hartley says. “But we had to perform at the highest level in all those conditions.” Engineers soon discovered that the performance of a mower could also change depending on the grass species. “There’re many types of grasses in the United States, and what might work good in one region doesn’t work as well in the other,” Hartley says. Stevens recalls a lesson on how grass varies from one region to another. “You go up to Seattle when it’s very damp, and you have to bag the grass. You cannot mulch. It doesn’t go away.” Engineers chased grass across America. “We would test in different regions of the United States,” Hartley recalls. “We would move from one region to the other and do the performance confirmations. And many times, what worked in one region, we would have to adjust it so it worked in the other region. And that was always a balance.” Every field test reshaped the mower. “It’s always been the same challenge, which is the performance of the mower and how the environment changes,” Hartley says. That process also led Honda to adopt a high-impact resin deck, improving durability while boosting bagging performance. Stevens says that the Versamow system, which allows users to adjust the balance between mulching and bagging according to grass conditions, helped the HRX earn a reputation beyond lawn care. With many people using it in autumn to pick up leaves, he adds that the HRX series is “probably the only mower that’s ever been dual-purposed as a lawn mower and as a leaf bagger in the fall time.” The HRX also became one of the first Honda lawn mowers sold in big-box retailers, gaining exposure to new customers. Engineers also had to focus on reducing noise and vibration, simplifying maintenance and eliminating routine tasks such as oil changes and carburetor servicing, with Stevens noting that younger users increasingly value convenience over mechanical familiarity while suburban and metropolitan customers prefer quiet models. From Gasoline to Electric, with Core Elements Retained After spending decades perfecting its gasoline engines, Honda shifted its focus to preparing for a market increasingly defined by batteries rather than fuel. In 2025, roughly two decades after the debut of the HRX, American Honda introduced a lineup of all-electric walk-behind lawn mowers. This year, its riding mowers followed the same path, with the launch of the ProZision Autonomous series incorporating a battery system and the Laser Imaging Detection and Ranging, or LiDAR, 360-degree sensing technology, which enables the detection of obstacles and helps ensure safe operations. “The market is looking for electric options for that,” Stevens says. “Environmental concerns continue, especially along the coasts with some of our strongest markets, especially on the West Coast,” he adds. “California was becoming increasingly strict on gasoline engines, so it made sense to introduce an electric mower to the marketplace.” Still, the transition has not been universal. In Japan, Honda continues to sell gasoline-powered walk-behind and riding models, with Abe saying, “Mowers are used in large grass areas, such as parks and highway shoulders, rather than home gardens.” “We think gasoline models, which are suitable for long operation, are sold more (than electric mowers) in the Japanese market,” he said. Batteries replaced gasoline, but Honda chose not to replace everything else. “We took a very durable drive system on our HRX, HRN and HRC models and turned it into an electric-controlled transmission,” which does not require maintenance work, Hartley says. Rather than starting from scratch, engineers carried over key technologies into the electric lineup. “The shape of the blade and the performance, we didn’t touch that because there was 40 years of development that went into the blade and shape of that,” Hartley says. “There’s no reason to change it.” Soichiro Honda’s Spirit Lives On Although Honda’s lawn mower business began after company founder Soichiro Honda (1906-1991) stepped down from management, engineers say his philosophy still guides their work. Developing power products that ease people’s burden in getting something done has “really shaped how we did things,” Hartley says of Soichiro’s credo. “We are able to reach out and provide products that customers really wanted to have and solve problems that they experienced,” Hartley adds. “After he retired, we carried on that same philosophy.” Ever since the launch of the HR21, the first Honda lawn mower, one critical principle survived in every product and through every redesign: safety–another management priority of Soichiro. While there are always regulations, Honda would always try to go further–making its safety features safer, Hartley explains. “(This) philosophy, not just for power products, but for all our products, is the hallmark of how we develop and carry forward our development spirit.” Stevens says innovation has followed the same path. From the first model’s pioneering safety system to today’s battery-powered lineup, he says, Honda has pursued safety improvements that customers could notice every time they started their machines, rather than technology for its own sake. Even after five decades, meanwhile, one challenge has never disappeared. “It’s always a challenge to design a high-quality product and keep a nice, reasonable price (at the same time),” Hartley says. Stevens agrees that price has always been the toughest obstacle. Yet he argues that customers at the cash register increasingly judge value throughout the life of the machine. The whir of a lawn mower may sound ordinary. Behind it lie 50 years of engineering, sales ingenuity and field testing–all guided by the charismatic founder’s philosophy that the company says still lives on. “We’re always looking at the next new technology, how we can provide a product that the customer is excited to buy, excited to use, excited to have, and will exceed their expectation,” Hartley says. “Always exceed!” END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
