Never electric for more than 1 reason. But the main reason is batteries when they go bad. No one has a way of recycling that type battery yet. Not good .. cant have tons of useless batteries laying around and potentially causing problems...leaking...fire hazzards....yes those batteries are volatile and can burn your house down easily. Another reason...motors for the blades are much more expensive than a belt...blade or even a spindle for the blades = even more expense....same with the drive motors. Green may be good in time but we need ways to keep costs down and keep mowing safe for the environment all at the same time.
That's not true, first there are recycling plants. Rochester, NY, the old Kodak 175 acre plant is now a recycling plant for Lithium batteries. Also LiFePo4 are very safe batteries, they don't have thermal runaway and millions of people use them in their homes for battery backup sand storage - including me. You have Li-Ion batteries right in your own home if you have a cell phone, a smart watch, a laptop or a dozen other appliances. The big noise about Chevy Bolt fires was 7 cars out of 100,000 and that was a manufacturing defect by LG who made the batteries for GM. Electric cars catch on fire 33% less that gas cars. My EGO lawn mower blades are no more expensive than my gas lawn mower blades were when I had a gas mower. I'm buying a electric zero turn mower. I have an EV, all electric garden appliances and power tools. My house runs on paid off PV, I haven't paid for gas in over seven years for my electric car. Good bye gas cans, tune ups, oil changes, belts, etc. The maintenance on my EV for the first 150k miles is to rotate the tires and change the cabin filter. Electric is just better!
A hydro belt can cause catastrophic damage in a gas mower. You have to maintenance oil, carb, and gas spills. The 40v batteries that it comes with are easily hotswapped and extend run time significantly. I could give a rip about the "clean" part, the convienance of battery makes this every bit the future as cordless impact guns have replaced air impact tools and cordless nail guns are starting to replace air nailers.
The longevity part is what worries me. If after a year or two the batteries start to decrease in the amount of charge they will take that obviously means less you can mow on a single charge. Then eventually it will get to where they want hold a charge at all and the cost of new batteries essentially would mean your mower is now junk. Where as, I can take a gas mower and work on it if it has problems and it could last me 20 years or more. If over time I can see that electric batteries will give me that kind of longevity then I might consider it but considering I live in the mountains and have some hilly terrain, I still think my cub cadet rzt-s (zero turn w/ steering wheel) is the best option for me.
That’s my worry as well! One good thing at least is that RYOBI offers 5 year warranty on the batteries. Wish I could be at least 10 but maybe overtime the lifetime of batteries will get better!
Need to use LFP batterys, im not sure what is used here but many ev's are using them now (just not in US because of stupid government tariffs as they are made in China) LFP's are good for 5000+ cycles - could mow your lawn everyday using 100%-0% for 14+ years without significant degradation.
Batteries are a huge problem bc they can cost upwards of $500, I have seen people convert to aftermarket AGM batteries though. Aside from that they're also considerably heavier than gasoline mowers which is not fun if you have a hilly backyard, can cause ruts in your lawn if you're not careful.
