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Quick Answer — Is an Electric Mower Cheaper to Run?
To run, yes, by a wide margin. To own, it depends on the lawn and the battery.
Start with how long mowing actually takes, because both running costs follow from it rather than from the lawn size directly:
Effective swath = cutting width ÷ 12 × (1 − overlap). Coverage per hour = swath × walking speed × 5,280. Hours = area ÷ coverage.
A 21-inch mower at 2.5 mph with 15% overlap cuts an effective 1.49 ft swath and covers 19,635 sq ft an hour. A 5,000 sq ft lawn therefore takes 15.3 minutes, and 28 mows a season is 7.13 hours of mowing.
Now the running costs for those hours:
- Gas — 0.35 gal/hour × 7.13 h = 2.50 gallons at $3.60 = $8.98 of fuel, plus $85 of oil, filters, plugs and a tune-up, giving $93.98 a year
- Electric — 1.6 kW × 7.13 h = 11.41 kWh at $0.17 = $1.94 of electricity, plus $15 of maintenance and $36.67 of annualised battery replacement, giving $53.61 a year
The electricity itself is almost free. What the electric mower actually costs is the battery, and every honest comparison turns on that number.