The Next Electric Frontier Is Your Backyard
Gas-powered lawn mowers and yard tools can be worse for the environment than cars. The good news is, the market is going electric.
So yesterday.
Photographer: Three Lions/Getty Images
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In the rush to swap gas for batteries on everything from cars and delivery trucks to boats and golf carts, lawn mowers don't get much attention. But the traditional gas-powered versions that many people will soon use to get their yards ready for summer can actually be worse for the environment than cars. Running the top-selling traditional gas-powered lawn mower for an hour releases as much smog-forming pollution as driving a 2016 Toyota Camry from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, according to the California Air Resources Board, a state agency formed in 1967 to work on ways to protect communities from air pollution. Operating the most popular leaf blower for an hour is roughly equivalent to taking a 1,100-mile jaunt to Denver from L.A. — a 15 hour-plus journey.