Wow, 14" blade! I can see how they're never going to deal with anywhere near as much of a torque need now as say, a 24" mower. My whole lawn (I only have a front lawn, the back is all concrete/gravel to save water) is maybe 15x30 feet, so I may have to look in to this when it comes time to replace my trusty 8+ year old Briggs & Stratton!

 

I've the Neuton mower too and love it second only to my Prius! It is really cool. I can do my yard (front and back) in an hour on one charge. And it has plenty more to go, it doesn't wane after an hour at all.

Tall grass is no problem. It has plenty of power/torque.

The cutting width is smaller (14") than my old 'gas-hog' mower (20"), but it only takes me 10 minutes more to do my whole yard. Plus I feel better about not using gasoline (smug environmentalist).

The plug-in trimmer/edger attachment is SO handy. Just pop it into the front and edge and trim the hard spots.

I can highly recommend it to anyone with a smaller lawn. I think if it takes you an hour and half or more to cut your lawn, this may not fit your needs. 'Course, you can always get a spare battery and keep going.

No oil changes, no gas worries, no pulling a cord to start. It's so quiet you can actually hear birds and converse with neighbors (telling how cool your new mower is!).

It seems a little plasticy (well, it is only 45 lbs.) but I figure I'm not jumping on it or riding it, I'm just rolling over the ground.

It really is quite a cool device. I do wish the battery was NiMH, not lead-acid. Maybe the next version...I plan on keeping it plugged in down in my basement over the winter. I always leave it plugged in as it has a self-regulating charger.

Okay, that should do it for a review. Completely satisfied. Go out and buy one and one for your noisy neighbors mower!

 

I'm pretty sick of gas mowers, I think every single neighbor uses one, so usually some time during the day it sounds like a bloody ultralight airplane is flying around. We have a manual push mower, makes less noise than electric, but it's not necessarily suitable for everyone since it's requiring a bit of effort.

Why can't they at least put big mufflers and catalytic converters on the mowers so they aren't so nasty?

 

Hah, my wife wants a mower that runs on grass. Pygmy goats. They probably do ocassionally have gas though. When we move to the country I may finally get her some.

 

We had one of those back in 1980 I called it the middle east free lawn mower. Unfortunatly it did not do a good job on the grass that grows here.Kevin

 

I grew up pushing an electric mower- got pretty handy at whipping 100ft of cord around. Thanks to this thread, I'm seriously considering adding to my electric/hybrid stable and grabbing a cordless mower to go 'back to the future.' I know it could handle my K31/fescue lawn in the summer, its April-May that I'm concerned about, when even 6hp gas has a hard time. Fix that with some discipline, maybe 5-day cut interval instead of 7-9.

Maryland had a 'mow-down' day in 04- turn in your gas, get $100 towards electric or push that you could buy right there from B&D at further discount. The CMM1000 was like $150 after all the discounts!!. Didn't do it this year, but its in the works for 06.

Now if only a good 24v, 4A solar charger was easy to come by!

 

A typical lawn mower is never 2-cycle. If you didn't add oil to the fuel, it wasn't 2 cycle, and not as bad a poluter as you might think.

 

You are mostly correct but "never" is too strong of a word. Lawnboys were 2 stroke for years. Anyway I agree, most lawnmowers are 4 stroke. Most trimmers are 2 stroke.

Update:

I just checked and Lawnboy still sells 2 as well as 4 stroke mowers.

http://www.lawnboy.com/about/engine/...ce_engine.html

 

Even if they are 4-stroke, that doesn't make them clean by any stretch of the imagination. Cleaner than 2-stroke, yes, but still some of the dirtiest motors operating because they have to squeeze as much power out of the small engines as they can, and keep the cost low there's no pollution controls or fuel injection. The only way industry cleans up is when there are appropriate laws and regulations in place, otherwise "free market competition" makes sure we get the lowest common denominator as a standard.

 

4 stroke mowers may indeed be dirty but they are small engines that are only run once a week and only in the summer. I'm all for cleaning them up but I'm not gonna lose any sleep over my gas push mower. Your house and cars use way more energy. I'm not disagreeing, just putting things in perspective.