It's been many moons since I had to buy a mower but now that I'm in the market, the electric options seen to outnumber the ICE ones. In this futuristic year of 2022 can electric mowers keep pace?
I'm looking for something to handle an acre and I'm not ready to make the riding mower leap just yet. The Roomba style robot mowers look really freakin cool but are also way outta budget for now.
Anyone using an electric? Anything I should keep in mind if I go that route?
The big thing is to make sure you have enough battery, but I would be more concerned with the deck size if I was cutting an acre. I'd want a 26" minimum, and I'm not aware of any affordable battery mowers that size.
I currently have a Ryobi 40V BRUSHLESS 20" PUSH LAWN MOWER that works great and I cant see myself ever going back to an ICE mower. That being said I would not use it if I had an acre to mow.
The 6ah battery that I have lets me mow my yard and do all the trimming and edging on a single charge but my lot is a little less than a quarter acre.
The property I previously lived on was about an acre and we had a 42" zero turn mower and it worked great and you could probably find a good deal on a used riding mower from FB marketplace.
I might stick with ICE if you really want to stay using a push mower.
I'm on a 1 acre m/l lot and use a Husqvarna dual battery electric for about 40-45 minutes of trimming/edging, but that's about all the batteries can manage in a single charge. It's not cutting the whole yard. Most of yard gets done with a JD X738 with a 54" deck which really, really likes gas. It does do an excellent job of running a 54" snowblower and pulling a small manure spreader as well
Ease of use and noise level on the electric machine are great though. If you need to use a string trimmer though, I'd go electric for that first.
1 acre? push mow? Does not compute. That would be a massive time commitment.
ProDarwin said:1 acre? push mow? Does not compute. That would be a massive time commitment.
That's why I have teenagers. They could go for some outdoor time anyway.
I'm using a Kobalt 40V, and agree with above statements about 40 not being a good match for an acre, just due to battery requirements. I use a 5 Ah battery and part of a 2.5 Ah battery almost every time I mow. I've heard the 80V mowers are better about battery life, and way better when dealing with thicker or taller grass, but haven't played with one yet.
PubBurgers said:That's why I have teenagers. They could go for some outdoor time anyway.
I had a summer job as a teenager, that among other tasks including having to mow a regulation size soccer field with a 21" Lawn Boy. 
I shared the job with another kid, and we turned it into sort of a conditioning wind sprint exercise. I would make one pass down and back running all the way, then hand off the mower to the other guy. I'd catch my breath while he made his pass, and then we'd repeat.
Oh man a lawn boy? Those were horrible for scalping!
I had an electric push mower 15 years ago, but it used an extension cord instead of batteries. Postage-stamp-sized lot, though. It actually worked pretty well, as long as you mowed outwards from the house there weren't any issues with running over the cord.
Karacticus said:I'm on a 1 acre m/l lot and use a Husqvarna dual battery electric for about 40-45 minutes of trimming/edging, but that's about all the batteries can manage in a single charge. It's not cutting the whole yard. Most of yard gets done with a JD X738 with a 54" deck which really, really likes gas. It does do an excellent job of running a 54" snowblower and pulling a small manure spreader as well
Ease of use and noise level on the electric machine are great though. If you need to use a string trimmer though, I'd go electric for that first.
All of this but 11 acres. The electric is basically a great edger so I dont have to get the tractor and 72" deck to close to things I might wreck.
I have a 21 inch Ryobi 40 V walk behind that I love. Even ignoring the electric part, it's just a really good mower. It mulches perfectly even in long, wet grass and never clogs. It chews through long wet grass as well as any ICE mower I've had. It will reliably do a third of an acre, even in tough conditions. Everything I ask of a mower.
I'll second codrus, just sold off a plug in electric which did me well for several years in the city. Bought and sold for the same $75 and mowed a small lot for years never batting an eye. If nothing blocking could have mowed as far as you could cover with an extension cord.
I have a solid acre of grass and so I use a riding mower cuz I *despise* lawnmowin' (told myself I'd neeeever have a house with a lawn yet here I am), but a buddy of mine just bought an E-go self-propelled walkbehind mower thing and I'll post his review of it, when it shows up and he uses the thing...
Ryobis come recommended. But more recommended (at least from me) is a $500 used John Deere or similar rider. But that is not the choice your kids will have, I see =)
Toro Timemaster, Turfmaster, or Exmark Commercial 30 is the answer. Let your wallet make the final decision.
I can tell you this - you can pry my Timemaster from my cold, dead, gasoline soaked hands.
If you can get the kids to do the work the mower makes a little more sense. But they can expect to go thru 2-3 batteries per cut so having 2 chargers might make sense. After 6 years with an ego, I would never buy their brand again. My batteries barely get thru a 3/4 acre cut, the blade will not hold an edge so I have to sharpen it every week or battery life gets even worse. The wiring on the handle developed an internal open and the seld propelled feature died. Since it was out of warranty I had to rewire myself.
And the customer service just sucks. Bought it, sent in the registration form and thought I was good. Three years later when I put in a claim over the battery life they said the warranty would not be honored because I didn't keep the original paper receipt! Credit card statement was not sufficient.
In reply to 93gsxturbo :
If we're talking commercial mower look no further than Ferris. Having a full suspension is a game changer. But total overkill for one acre (unless you REALLY hate being outside long)
Toro Timemaster is the droid you are looking for. I really don't like gas lawn equipment anymore. Especially after working on the design team for Ryobi lawn mowers for almost 2 years but the Timemaster is one of the best mowers I have ever used.
If your lot were smaller Ryobi 21" or EGO 21". The 21" mowers may still be a good option with an extra battery. I could mow my .7 acre lot on 2 and a half 6Ah batteries with my Ryobi 21". Self propel on a DC mower will use 10-15% of the runtime, more if you are bagging. The true push models are the cheaper options, are a bit lighter, less rolling resistance and are much more true to the runtime claim on the box.
Greenworks has a 26" twin blade, closest thing to an electric Timemaster on the market today but it has garbage runtime and their older 40v batteries.
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