"The $13-billion-a-year farm machinery giant had come up with a low-emission technology for its Homelite line of two-stroke consumer handheld products, which it had purchased only a few years before. The design, called compression wave, is similar to RedMax's stratified design. What was not similar was the full-court press that Deere's lobbyists put on the EPA to persuade the agency to stick with the more stringent Phase II standards, despite the howling protests of PPEMA. Deere's efforts paid off, as the EPA adopted the tougher standards in July 1999.
But what happened next was bizarre. Although Deere licensed the technology to Stihl, not a single product embodying it has ever reached the market. Last November, moreover, Deere sold the Homelite division to TechTronics Industries (TTI) of Hong Kong. Under a squeeze from big-box retailers, Homelite had lost $100 million in 21 months. Deere has few friends in the handheld industry today. "What's fascinating is that Deere persuaded the EPA, and then the industry gets screwed," says an industry source closely involved with the EPA. Deere won't comment, but in fairness it must be said that its intense lobbying efforts may have incited fresh waves of innovation among the handheld manufacturers. "
Nothing runs like a Deere............
