I have one Memory from my childhood: I was in the large yard of a family friend who lived in a rural area, trying to start his old gas-powered lawnmower. I pulled on the cord in vain for what seemed like hours, while the engine slowly turned over without starting.
So there was no doubt that I was going to be an early and enthusiastic adopter of electric lawnmowers, making the switch around the same time I replaced my VHS tapes with Blu-ray.
Since then, I’ve owned at least six electric mowers—some plug-in, some battery-powered. At one point, I even modified a Homelite mower that I liked, except for its underpowered proprietary battery, by soldering its connectors to a better lithium battery (I probably miscalculated; the battery melted). Each of those electric mowers seemed to sacrifice something you could get from a traditional internal combustion engine mower—trading a pesky extension cord or underpowered battery for instant starting, less noise, and no smoke.
That is, until the Greenworks 60V 21-Inch Self-Propelled Lawn Mower came along, which I’ve been testing out in my yard this summer. After four months of testing, I’ve found that this Greenworks model does everything I need a lawn mower to do in my Midwestern yard—and it does it gracefully. If you’re a lawn enthusiast, I’m sure there are lawn mowers with more options and features to consider. But I don’t want to think too hard about my lawn mower—I just want to push a button, walk around my yard, cut a few inches off the top of my grass, and then haul it back to the garage. This Greenworks lawn mower is the first electric lawn mower I’ve ever owned that does that.
Sixty beats forty
The first thing I want to know about an electric lawn mower is how easy it is to handle the battery. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has overlooked corded electric lawn mowers, which, up until a few years ago, still offered the best combination of power and price. The Greenworks has two battery ports that will each house a 60V battery, though I’ve only used one. That 5Ah battery provides enough power to mow my small lawn twice with the turbo engaged, or three and a half times with the standard. However, my lawn is only about 3,000 square feet of grass, and in the United States, residential lawns average about 10,000 square feet. According to Home Advisor(If you live in Vermont or Montana, you’ll probably want that second battery.) The advertised range is up to one acre, which is 43,560 square feet, but even with both batteries fully charged, I wouldn’t expect to get there based on my range in testing.
Photography: Martin Cizmar
Because it’s a 60V system, it has more power than more common 40V systems, which makes a big difference when it comes to dealing with leaves. With a maximum power output of 3,200 RPM (close to the upper end of the standard range for a gas-powered lawn mower) using turbo mode, I found the Greenworks to have plenty of power to mulch leaves, though long, wet grass drained the battery much faster than I would have expected—a half-charge remaining on a single battery wasn’t enough to finish my small yard.
