| Personally - I think electric is still a fews years off being usable for yard equipment. I live in a metro, but my property is about an acre. I bought an electric lawnmower/weed eater when I bought the house. I used them for a year, then donated them and bought gas (4 stroke for both). The problems I encountered: Batteries are expensive and they just don't last nearly long enough (both charge and life). To do a real pass on my yard without waiting for a charge cycle, I would have needed about 4 batteries for the trimmer, and 8 for the mower. I do live in a heavily wooded area with a large number of vines (and kudzu...) but still - that's nearly 1000 dollars in batteries alone. I opted to wait, and stick with 4, but it means what was previously 4 hours in the yard is now 4 hours split into several sections - an all day affair. Even with the above, I would have probably stuck with the trimmer (the mower was just garbage), except I had two batteries fail in the first year. That's just an unacceptable extra cost for yard work, and FAR eclipses the entire amount I've spent on gas for the mower/trimmer combined over the last 3 years I've had them. So... No. Frankly I don't think they're there yet. It's very close, but it's slower, and frankly - outrageously more expensive. So I'm going to wait for cost to come down, and regulation to address battery interoperability in this equipment (hah... as if our government would actually do something useful). |