Death to Batteries

The mower quit.
I was cutting the grass in the back, chomped down onto a parcel of thick stuff, then ... silence.
Tried to restart it. No joy.

This particular machine is the Black and Decker 24V cordless rechargeable.
It's electric. We love it! It's cleaner, quieter, cooler, easier to operate,
and usually less of a maintenance concern. But I worried for a bit if I had done some damage.

I decided it was time to stop anyway.
(Was only thinning the heavy stuff and would not have done the whole yard.)
After rolling the mower to its place, I tried one more time to restart before plugging it in. It started right up as if nothing had happened. The outage was probably overload protection. Could possibly have been the battery in need of a quick chemical rest (my term). Who knows?

This is the drawback to pure electrics: getting that power to the motor.
My better half insisted that we not get a corded mower. And she's right; that would have been a hassle, even a danger. (Almost as bad as vacuuming up CAT 5 ethernet cable in the den.)

The CMM1000 uses a sealed lead-acid battery. Heavy.
The weight of a lead battery is tolerable in this application. All it has to do is chop vegetation. It doesn't have to lug 200 lbs of me to the office and back at 70MPH with A/C blasting. NiMH batteries are a little better than lead-acid in terms of weight. But batteries with less mass and more energy density than these are hard to come by, and fuel cells are too (for now). So we have hybrids.

With hybrids, you carry a private power plant along for the ride.
No need to stop what you're doing and find an outlet. Recharging happens on-demand in real-time.
Think about it! There's no shame in tossing a generator in the bed of your RangerEV for that cross-country trip. You just have to endure the jeers of those who don't "get it", or you have to find better packaging.

Hybrids are a stop-gap.
Hybrids are also the future after that.
Parallel hybrids (like current automotive offerings) keep you bound to petroleum based propulsion. Series hybrids can more easily plug-in other fuels. These designs are not new. Packaging for consumers is what's new. We have some hybrids now, and more to come. As consumers begin to recognize that theyr'e not golf carts, demand will increase. As other car makers see the market, supply will increase. Eventually, the packages offered will cover a broader spectrum of hybrid capability, approaching pure elecric.

Really, any "pure electric" is in fact a series hybrid with the petroleum (or other) half hidden behind your local utility company.

Now ... where did I leave that steam engine I wanted to lend Ted Danson to tow behind his EV1?

-- R;