Can Lawnmowers Lead the Way?. Electric mowers might be a gateway to…

Member-only story

George Dillard

Follow

Predict

--

3

Share

For as long as I can remember, one of the inevitable sounds of summer has been the gas-powered lawnmower. The sputtering start followed by the combination of the engine’s bass-heavy thrumming and the high whine of the spinning blade says “August in the suburbs” as clearly as singing birds or the sound of lawn sprinklers.

But now I’m hearing a different sound on my evening walks. Well, actually, I’m hearing less noise altogether, because the classic lawnmower sound has been replaced with the quiet buzz of a battery-powered electric mower.

Though I still see a lot of people using old-style gas mowers, I’d say about half of the houses in my neighborhood have switched over to electric ones at this point. It’s not hard to see why. Electric mowers are better than gas-powered ones in almost every way:

Even fairly big yards — I mow about 3/4 of an acre without recharging — are very doable with a good battery mower.