Battery Powered Lawnmowers!
 

In the midst of the rousing excitement over the Lawnmowers! thread, I thought I'd start one on electric lawnmowers.

I want cordless (and currently that means battery powered, since the nuclear powered lawnmowers we were promised decades ago in Poopular MeCanIx magazine never materialized, nor have the fuel cell powered ones)...

What should I get?

How may acres of lawn will they cut? If I had a little city lawn I would get one for my Wife....

These were marketed under several different names but were built by GE in the 70s and have quite a cult following. There is an Elec Trac club that has Elec Trak shows and everything.

The Elec-Trak electric tractor

I feel like its going to be a gimmick at the end of the day. Batteries, especially in the summer, will not be robust after much time. If for some odd reason someone is against the awesomeness of a gas mower/tractor it would be best to look at a corded mower. But in all honesty, and not what you wanted to hear, a gas mower is what you need.

We have one and about 2000 sq ft of lawn to cut. It does a nice job, and keeps a decent charge doing it.
we turned in our gas mower and got this at super discount (on the new unit) from a city of LA subsidy

You can work like a mow-fo' early Saturday morning without pissing off the neighbors!

I have killed most of my grass - I like having a small area of lawn (about 2x or 3x the size of my (large) living room) for the dog to roll in, to lie around on & I even set up tents there to air out sometimes. Way too small for a gas mower.

It is down hill from the street so gas would have to be carried down the hill (and a gas mower would have to be carried both ways to get it tuned up).

I've been using a push reel mower but got tired of dealing with the ultra-wet Orygun grass -- also a battery mower will let me get the leaves up fast in the fall.

Cons. Reports seems to like the Black & Decker mowers...

what's the point of getting up early on a saturday if you cant wake the neighborhood up with some form of internal combustion?:confused:

Two thoughts (not sure if they apply in your situation but maybe). I never buy gas mowers that aren't self propelled rear wheel drive. That would really help the hill situation and the tune ups are something you may be able to learn to handle.

Could you run an electric cord down the hill to use a super light electric motor powered mower?

The whole battery thing doesn't bode well with me - I fear you'll spend more than necessary on battery "issues."