What is an Electric Lawn Mower?

Electric lawn mowers do not use gasoline; they are powered by electricity.  An electric lawn mower has several advantages over gasoline-powered ones. Electric mowers are noticeably quieter.  Their sound level is around 75 decibels, about the same as a telephone’s dial tone, much less than the 90 decibels of a gas-powered lawn mower.  The quieter noise level is a great selling point to many people – they don’t have to wait until they think their neighbors are up before mowing their lawn.

Electric mowers have no spark plugs, fuel lines, or air filters that require regular cleaning and/or replacement.  But the biggest advantage of electric mowers is that they run much cleaner than gasoline-powered mowers; gas engines produce substantial amounts of pollution while electric mowers have ZERO emissions.  According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, gas-powered lawn mowers produce about 5% of our nation’s air pollution.  Some estimates say that lawn mowers produce four times the amount of pollution as a car.  If every American household switched from gas powered to electric-power for lawn maintenance, an estimated 800 million gallons of gas could be saved each year!

There are corded mowers that have an electric cord that must be plugged in to an electrical outlet. These have several disadvantages:  the length of the cord limits the size of the area that can be mowed, and there is the danger of the mower accidentally running over and cutting through the electric cord, giving the person mowing a potentially fatal electric shock. 

A cordless mower runs on rechargeable batteries.  Battery-powered mowers typically have from one to four batteries, ranging from 12 volts up to 36 volts.  More batteries give the lawn mower greater power and longer running time. No cord means they can be used almost anywhere, but are recommended for lawns of one-third acre or smaller . The instant start of an electric mower is another great advantage, too – no cranking required! 

Some models of electric mowers even offer both options:  you can use them with an electric cord or go cordless. Today’s electric lawn mowers have come a long way and offer more options for about the same price as gas-powered mowers.  When you consider the savings in gasoline and oil, spending more for an electric mower still makes economical good sense.  Some electric mowers advertise that their engines use about the same amount of electricity as the average toaster, with an operating cost of about five dollars per year!