The revolution is already here. I had gas powered weedwackers as a kid. Nowadays I own an 18v brushless Makita. It's fantastic, almost as powerful as the gas one was...and they also make 36v and 80v versions that are beyond powerful enough for any job.

I own a mix. I absolutely love my electric leaf blower and electric chainsaw. But I own both an electric and a gas-powered string trimmer. The electric one is every bit as powerful as the gas one, and it's much nicer to use. But it doesn't have the runtime to do the large steep slope further away from the house. For the big jobs I tend to dual-wield, using a blade on one and a string on the other. If I hadn't inherited the gas-powered one, I'd probably just have more batteries for the electric one.

Those higher voltage weedwackers are very impressive. I've used one that was somewhere north of 40v, and it was closer to a brush-cutter than a weedwacker. I had to turn it down to a lower setting to prevent damaging the things I was trimming around.

The revolution is obviously coming. The big manufactures probably support this as it will force their customers to replace working equipment with their new battery lines.

Oh yeah, it's already here. The money to be made is huge. Used to be you'd go buy a Honda mower and it would run with practically zero maintenance for 20 years or more. Now you go get a cordless mower and replace batteries every two or three years, and the whole thing becomes obsolete pretty quickly. It's a lucrative market.

Gas mowers are definitely not zero maintenance, at least not past 10 years. I've replaced my fair share of gaskets & spark plugs, cleaned out intakes, and spent 20m screwing with the choke to get the damn things started.

I went pure electric 5 years ago with no problems. Starts up every time with the push of a button and since I bought a set, it came with multiple batteries so I can swap them out before fully depleting one for extended life.

I guess everyone has a different experience, then. I made a sport out of trying to kill an old Briggs & Stratton lawn mower by doing no maintenance at all. Running old gas, never changing the oil or anything else, just didn't care. It wouldn't die. Well, except for the self-propelled part, that was always a nuisance. But the engine was indestructible [0]. I finally retired it after 20 years due to rust, but the engine was still going fine.

I have my share of electric battery-powered lawn equipment, but I've already gone through one generation of batteries which rendered the old equipment obsolete. And the markup on batteries is on the order of 500% compared to what a generic battery of similar chemistry would cost. It's an excellent racket, very profitable.

I wonder about the people here on HN buying Ryobi stuff... maybe they're onto something. Normally I wouldn't touch Ryobi with a ten foot pole, because it's trash. But OTOH, it's cheap, so maybe the quality of the tool will match up with the expected availability of batteries so the TCO isn't as offensive.

[0] If you haven't seen those old videos where B&S demonstrates why the Slick 50 demos were BS, you should. Lawnmower engines are way overbuilt, mostly as an artifact of their small size. They're hard to kill.

Ethanol in gas has had a seriously deleterious effect on lawn equipment. So many carbs full of gooey nasty rubber residue. My local Home Depot has started carrying cans of ethanol free gasoline because there are literally no gas stations in the county that carry it anymore.

It's bad when you're looking at some piece of equipment and are relieved to discover that it has been sitting with gas in it since the 90s. At least there is a hope the rubber bits are intact.

On the other hand, this is so common now that the aftermarket carb business has become a mass market. You can buy chinese knockoffs carbs with all of the hoses and plastic bits for like $10 on Amazon now.

That isn't ethanol. That is the cheaper grade of gas they use with ethanol rotting faster. (Ethanol is high octane, you cannot use the same molecules in non-ethanol gas as you can in ethanol) So yes, ethanol free gas lasts longer, but it isn't because it is ethanol free, it is because the gas is better quality.

Aftermarket carbs are cheap because carbs are cheap. You can buy a lawn mower at WalMart for $100, and everyone has to make a profit. That means the engine can't cost more than $20, and the carb must be less than that. The Chinese make a nice profit selling new carbs for $10, even though most carbs still go to the engine manufactures who pay a lot less in quantity.

Ethanol has been common enough in gas since the 90s.In the early years there were problems with it attacking rubber. That rubber hasn't been used in fuel systems for years though.

Tell that to all of the carbs I find full of fossilized nasty black tar.

There are gas stations that sell ethanol free gas.

Closest one to me according to pure-gas.org is about an hour away, a couple of counties over. There are literally none in the county. I don't know if that's local law or market forces in action.

It's already here. Try the battery powered options from the usual brands (I prefer Makita), they are fantastic.

They are already selling full product lines. For example:

https://www.husqvarna.com/us/products/battery/

(I don't remember how I ended up there but I was looking at their battery products a few months ago)

I have a battery powered leaf blower that I wouldn't dare give up for a gas one. The ease of use and volume difference is amazing.

It wouldn't be great for large commercial estates, but the runtime is more than enough for most homeowners.

I have a second battery to swap and fast charge, but I also have an abnormal number of messy trees on 5 acres.