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My channel is all about smart and sustainable technologies, but I never thought that I’d
be wanting to talk about ... a lawn mower. But here we are. I’ve been using an EGO
LM2001 lawn mower for the past 5 years, but just upgraded to the newest self-propelled
model. How is it? And why should you consider going electric over gas?
I’m Matt Ferrell ... welcome to Undecided.
Going electric is kind of a slippery slope. I knew I wanted to go with an EV a long time
ago, but with the features I wanted until the Model 3. But once I got my EV it was a
huge motivation to get solar installed on my house. It’s really cool being able to
charge my car off of sunshine ... which makes you want to electrify everything in your life.
Like mowing your lawn with a battery charged by sunshine.
Why go electric?
I’ve been mowing lawns since I was old enough to push a mower. Most of that time has been
using various gasoline push and rider mowers, with different horsepower and features, but
in the end it’s always been a headache to maintain them. So what’s the benefit of
going with something like one of these EGO mowers? Well the pros are pretty straight
forward:
No spark plugs to change No fuel filters to change
No oil to change No gasoline to store or accidentally spill
when you refill the tank Even though electric mowers can be a little
more expensive upfront, they can save you money over time (just like an EV)
Better for the environment ... and even if that’s not something you care about, there’s
no exhaust smell. But one of my favorite pros is that they’re
quieter and lighter than gas mowers
I’ve always worn ear plugs when I use gas mowers, but with the electric mower , I’ve
never felt the need to. They aren’t silent, but it’s not a disruptive noise, so you
can actually mow your lawn at times you may have avoided before to not tick off your neighbors.
I still wouldn’t advise mowing at 5:00am, but you won’t bother your neighbor’s with
an electric mower compared to a gasoline mower.
But what I think will win most people over is the maintenance. Just like my Tesla there’s
really not much maintenance required, which can save you time and money in the long run.
The only things you have to do are clear out the deck from grass build-up and sharpen the
blade. That’s pretty much it.
Both of these EGO models fold up for easy storage, which was a big selling point for
me. You just unclip two clips on the push arm to collapse it, and then push in a lever
to swivel the entire arm over the top of the mower. Stand the mower up on edge and wheel
it up against the wall. I’ve got a small garage, so being able to tuck this away after
each mowing was a big plus. One downside with the design of my original EGO mower were the
clips. They never had a strong click or grasp, so as you mow they can sometimes work their
way loose. My wife and I ended up using a little tape on there to stop that from happening,
so not a great user experience.
Along the same lines was the “key” that you had to insert and press down as you pulled
the activation lever to make it run. The pull bar works in the same way as a gasoline mower
for automatic shutoff if you let go of the mower while it’s running. But you also need
a safety mechanism to prevent accidentally starting the mower, which I get. I just never
understood why it was a removable key, which could get lost. It came tethered to the handle
when I bought it, and I’ve never removed it ... or felt the need to.
The older EGO also isn’t self-propelled, which I had some concerns about in the beginning,
but it turned out to be somewhat manageable. It’s dramatically lighter than any gas mower
I’ve used, so it doesn’t take much effort to push. However, we do have a bit of a steep
slope in our front yard that can be ... challenging. If your yard is more level, then the lack
of self-propulsion shouldn’t be an issue at all. For my wife and I, it was a bit of
an annoyance.
The only other issue, if you can call it that, was that it could sometimes get a little clogged
up if the grass was too damp. Most of the time this didn’t cause a problem, but when
it did, it was very annoying to have to stop and clean it out a couple of times during
a mowing session. I’ve encountered that on gasoline mowers too, but less frequently
on mowers with a high horsepower. Those may sound like really annoying issues,
but they were manageable and the trade offs were worth it to have a mower that had almost
no maintenance, ran off of sunshine, and didn’t make you go deaf from mowing the yard.
That brings me to the new model, which is the 56-Volt LM2130SP (rolls right off the
tongue) with a 7.5Ah battery. It’s been a few years between the models, and it shows.
EGO has clearly been learning, iterating, and improving their design. This model has
erased pretty much every issue I had with my previous model.
It’s self propelled. Getting the mower up our front hill is now effortless. You control
the speed of the mower with a little dial in the middle of the handle bar, which I think
is a great location and easy to use. It can vary the speed between .9 and 3.1 miles per
hour.[] On either side of the dial are two large green buttons, which act as an accelerator
pedal. Push either one down and the mower takes off. The only oddity I’ve noticed
is that the motor can sometimes lock a wheel if you take your hand off the button to stop
the motion, and then immediately lift to turn or drag the mower back. This is actually mentioned
in the manual’s troubleshooting section, which states to push the mower forwards just
a little bit after stopping if that happens. I figured that out on my own the first time
I used it, so it just takes some getting used to and isn’t really a problem.
The vertical part of the bar has a shape to it now that feels more comfortable and secure
to hold, and places your hand in the perfect location for the button. But the fact that
the button wraps the corner gives you a lot of flexibility depending on what you’re
doing. They’ve replaced the key with a simple push
button. No more having to worry about losing a key, it’s built in now, which is the better
design choice. They’ve also included a headlight on this model, which I haven’t really had
a chance to test out yet. The button to turn it on and off is located right by the handle
bar. And on the side of the handle area is an indicator light to show you the battery’s
charge. This ... is kind of useless because the LED light is so dim. When it’s bright
and sunny out it just looks like a white piece of plastic ... unless you cup your hand around
it and squint really hard.
The issue we had with the clips on our old model looks to be solved. These clips have
a very strong click and grasp. It’s obviously too early to say if these will hold up for
years to come, but they feel dramatically better than the older version.
Just like the other version, it has the option for mulching or catching the grass. You can
easily switch between modes by inserting the mulching plug or removing that and attaching
the bag. The new model does come with one extra attachment for throwing the grass to
the side, in case you don’t want to mulch or catch it. In my case, I’ll never be using
that, but it’s nice they include it as an option with this model.
The new version has also redesigned the battery compartment. The old version wasn’t bad,
but the battery inserted straight up and down. It worked just fine, but it made it a little
more difficult to see the battery light indicator from behind the mower. It was also a two handed
operation to remove it. The new design puts the battery at an angle towards the back of
the mower. You have a straight line of site to the compartment now, but because of the
angle it’s also slightly easier to insert and remove the batteries. Even with one hand.
But probably the most impressive thing is the new double blade design, which they call
Select Cut. Out of the box it comes with a premium mulching blade attached, but you can
swap out the lower blade with the included premium bagging blade. Which oddly is described
as cutting grass into finer fragments that’s great for mulching and bagging. Straight from
the manual, “If you want to get better mulching and bagging performance, please replace the
lower blade with the edge premium TRI cut lower blade.” Uh ... so why not install
that by default? Not a big deal since they include it in the box, but a bit confusing.
So what about the batteries and the charging experience? Before I get to that, I’d like
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So what about the batteries and the charging experience? In my opinion this is where the
entire line of EGO products really shines. The 7.5Ah battery that’s included charges
in about 60 minutes with the included Rapid Charger. How long it will run depends on the
workload and how much you’re using the self-propelled motor. If you’re doing a light load, then
it can last for about 60 minutes. Pushing it to the extreme means probably about 30
minutes, but on average you’ll probably see somewhere around 45 minutes most of the
time. This is often pointed out as one of the downsides to battery-driven electric lawn
mowers over gasoline, but I really don’t agree. If you buy a second battery, then you
can swap out the battery and keep moving, while the first one recharges. And if you
buy multiple EGO products, you can end up with a nice little stockpile of batteries.
I’ve got two 2.5Ah batteries, and one 5Ah in addition to the 7.5.Ah that came with this
mower. I got those extra batteries with the edge trimmer, leaf blower, and previous mower.
EGO also sells a 10Ah battery if you need to max things out.
How long is their lifepsan? I’ll tell you when I find out, but my oldest batteries are
all 5-years-old and still going strong. From May till early October, I mow my lawn at least
once a week, sometimes twice when the grass is growing super fast. In the fall there’s
a lot of time spent using the leaf blower and taxing those batteries too. EGO even makes
portable power stations that you can pop 4 batteries on and get up to 2,000 watts of
continuous power from for running anything you want. Hopefully this doesn’t sound like
an ad because it’s not. I paid for all of this with my own money and am just very impressed
with the quality of what I’ve purchased. My wife, who hates mowing, doesn’t mind
itsince we got the EGO.
I wanted her to tell you in her own words, but she hates being filmed, so we came to
a... compromise.
So if you’re looking for a better mowing experience, and want to get a little greener
by getting rid of gasoline mower, you really should be looking at EGO ... they really are
the Tesla of mowers. And even if you don’t care about going green, this mower can easily
go toe-to-toe with a gasoline powered mower, but without the maintenance and fumes. It’s
just a better mowing experience all around.
If you liked this video and are looking to make your home a little greener, be sure to
check out my review of my Ecobee smart thermostat. It’s another great way to reduce your energy
use, save some money, and make heating and cooling your home easier. Jump into the comments
and let me know if you’ve gone with an electric mower and how it’s working out. And as always,
thanks so much for watching, I’ll see you in the next one.