It's great to have choices. Keep us posted.

 

Being a younger biological male :lol: :lol: who has under 5 years at current residence. My parents "gifted" me the 18" toro recyler I used my entire life mowing their lawn. I forgot the year it was built but remember thinking that it was at least 20 years old. The thing needed a tune up kit and was humming along.

This is what I feel that E mowers will not have. Longevity and where any joe can service.

Think Teslas right now, do you know how much I could charge to fix one if I knew how ? No support system or even the ability to repair for mowers.

I assume that if i buy an e mower its like buyong a disposable razor. This inevitably profits the seller as youll be back in 5 years for your next one.

I could be wrong, but only time will tell.

Im not against them but pros vs cons.
Im not sure that current price is adjusted for needing to buy one every ~5 years.
Im also the type of dude to want to pass something on like I inherited the 20 y/o recycler.

 

Being a younger biological male :lol: :lol: who has under 5 years at current residence. My parents "gifted" me the 18" toro recyler I used my entire life mowing their lawn. I forgot the year it was built but remember thinking that it was at least 20 years old. The thing needed a tune up kit and was humming along.

This is what I feel that E mowers will not have. Longevity and where any joe can service.

Think Teslas right now, do you know how much I could charge to fix one if I knew how ? No support system or even the ability to repair for mowers.

I assume that if i buy an e mower its like buyong a disposable razor. This inevitably profits the seller as youll be back in 5 years for your next one.

I could be wrong, but only time will tell.

Im not against them but pros vs cons.
Im not sure that current price is adjusted for needing to buy one every ~5 years.
Im also the type of dude to want to pass something on like I inherited the 20 y/o recycler.

Well, whats really going to go wrong with it and whens the last time you heard of someone wearing out their corded electric mower?
I would say that theres far more problems and far more gas mowers that are dead long before their time than there ever will be electric mowers simply because of all the care and maintenance that is required of them.
Id say too, look at all the electric power tools that last for decades and decades needing no maintenance. Basically, these electric mowers operate on a similar technology, just with bigger motors. Have you ever heard of an electric leaf blower wearing out? How about an electric string trimmer? Time will tell but really the only thing Id be worried about with an electric mower is the cost of replacing the batteries.
IMO, gas is a dying thing and its only a matter of time before its a relic of the past.

 

So, anyways, 1st mow with the Craftsman today. Thus far, I like it. Its very light and easy to push, it has tons of power and it takes me about 30 minutes to mow my yard and by the time I got done the batteries were still showing full charge.
Infact, the mower has so much power that I only had 1 small patch of thicker grass where the motor revved up. Other than that, it throttled itself back and at no point in time lacked for power.
I also use the leaf blower for blowing off my walkway and used it in low speed most of the time. We had some heavy rain earlier in the morning, so it was blowing wet leaves that I had to crank it up on high for and it worked great. I used a 4ah battery with the blower and when I got done (about 10 minutes of blowing in total) it was still showing 2 out of 3 bars. I had read some reviews for this blower that complained about poor battery life and only getting 10 minutes on a charge but Im thinking those people must have been using the smaller 2ah battery with it. I may have to try it on some of my smaller batteries but its been experience that electric OPE just runs better on 4ah batteries. All of my Ryobi OPE ran way better on the 4ah batteries than they did on the 2ah.

 

@Retromower

Its basically the fact that all wear and tear parts on gas are replaced. Plug, filter, oil.
When an E drive breaks, you throw it out.

Ironically I saw this in the store last night:
https://www.harborfreight.com/80v-lithium-ion-cordless-brushless-21-in-self-propelled-lawn-mower-tool-only-56992.html

I cant find on site but in the store it said "cuts faster than gas"

So this claims it senses the torque and ups it when required.

This actually is the only reason that I'd buy one. More Power !!!!

I might have to buy and test on some thick wet grass.

Its known that teslas blow away ICE engines lol.
I still apply the disposable razor anology but this makes it worth buying IMO.

If the average Home owner can slack, break 1/3 rule and hack off 3" at a time well thats something unique that gas cant do.

 

The other big change with modern battery operated devices is the brushless motors.

Older and cheaper tools use brushes to electrically connect the fixed part of the motor to the rotating shaft part. These brushes rub metal to metal causing friction. The friction causes efficiency loss and results in parts that will eventually wear out. Brushless motors eliminate these two problems.

 

@Retromower

Its basically the fact that all wear and tear parts on gas are replaced. Plug, filter, oil.
When an E drive breaks, you throw it out.

Ironically I saw this in the store last night:
https://www.harborfreight.com/80v-lithium-ion-cordless-brushless-21-in-self-propelled-lawn-mower-tool-only-56992.html

I cant find on site but in the store it said "cuts faster than gas"

So this claims it senses the torque and ups it when required.

This actually is the only reason that I'd buy one. More Power !!!!

I might have to buy and test on some thick wet grass.

Its known that teslas blow away ICE engines lol.
I still apply the disposable razor anology but this makes it worth buying IMO.

If the average Home owner can slack, break 1/3 rule and hack off 3" at a time well thats something unique that gas cant do.

Again though, whens the last time you saw an electric power tool that was worn out? I know plenty of people who have drills and circular saws that are 20 years old and still going strong.
For me, the allure of an electric mower isnt so much power and it is lack of maintenance. Charge the battery or batteries up and go. No oil changes, no gas to buy, no spark plugs, no air filters, no carbs to get gummed up, no fuel filters to change.
Part of it too for me is how much quieter it is and supporting green technology. After having an electric mower and then going back to gas and now being back with an electric one again, I dont see myself owning another gas mower. Theres just too much hassle with it and too many things that can go wrong.

 

@Retromower
True.
Pro's and Cons.

Decent point about E-Tools difference being the amount of use and abuse those get compared to a mower.

BUT if this was the case, why wouldn't every ditch Milwaukee and Craftsman and by Cheap Harborfreight tools ?
If the design is so clean and fool proof?

My point is that there are still failure modes for whatever reason... could be crappy assembly, bad copper, bad connections in the motor, something rattles loose and Electrons stop flowing, Heck a Big CME and you cant MOW !!!!

If these occur your mowers toast unless the MFG saves you...

Whereas Failure modes with a Gas Mower can be Fixed, Not all but most. (and would survive a CME lol).

The other thing to look out for is the cost of electricity AND the Cost of batteries, they seem attractive now but when there's a monopoly on these items you best believe that they'll put the squeeze on.
And as batteries are the only "Maintenance item" it's something that you can't avoid.

There's a reason that we they Dollar is called the "petrol Dollar", soon it will change to the Lithium dollar.
https://followthemoney.com/preparing-for-the-collapse-of-the-petrodollar-system-part-1/

Then you factor in the GND and things like Wind turbines and solar panels. Deployment of these will find the cost to charge your batteries much higher. Another hidden tax.

Anyway... there are definitely benefits, I may get one myself to toy around with.

One thing to check is the charger stops pumping in Electrons when the battery is full... this is why many early cell and PC batteries kicked the can so early. back in the 07-12' range. People left the chargers plugged in all night eventually wasting the charge cycles.
I could see this as a trick to force faster battery replacements.