Wow just had a facepalm moment realising what you said is spot on. To make matters worse small-engined tools that pollute the environment are used weekly to keep the yard nice... what a waste
You will be happy to learn that we are just on the cusp ...
Bosch and Dewalt have very high density battery power systems and they are using them for lawn tools - including normal push mowers. Other tool companies are quickly following suit.
Unlike past iterations, these tools really do have the power and longevity to do real work. To wit: my local volunteer fire department now carries a battery powered Dewalt chainsaw in one of our engines.
As for the embedded carbon cost in all of these new tools and batteries and the production pollution that is occurring "somewhere" ... an exercise for the reader.
That said, I plan to remove the small bit of lawn that I do have and replace it with something of an English-style garden.
https://www.scotts.com/en-us/products/tools-accessories/scot...
They are loads of fun! Your grass ends up looking better too.
(I have a small yard that was previously mowed using a string trimmer.)
I've seen a few landscape crews using battery powered blowers and trimmers (not downtown, but near IAD). I have no idea how they manage the batteries.
They were everywhere.
The hedgehog will curl up and (at least some of) the machines will drive into it.
The better alternative would be for society to realize that noise pollution can also be quite an issue, instead of insisting things need to be loud because "we like loud, it projects power!".
Beware some reel mowers though... they can have plastic gearing inside which wears out pretty quickly.
Also you need to get the hang of adjusting the bar against the cutters "just so" and the height of the reel above the grass depending on how damp and long it is.
Price is obvious, buying a second battery can be a hundred dollar affair and then the confusion sets in as a lot of time the spare batteries are not exactly the same as the original, most manufacturers offer spares in lower amperage to make the price lower. Confusion over volts versus amperage and how it applies to functionality. Performance system because these air cooled solutions will run down faster in tall or wet grass and battery reliability hasn't been great.
anecdotal I owned a Ryobi 40V mower. Sold with a 5Amp battery. It was around four hundred dollars. A second battery a hundred and fifty dollars. If you had anything beyond a small lawn you need two or more else you just take an hour off. Grass gets tall or wet the motor works harder and battery life takes a hit and worse it got hot. A hot battery will not charge. Needless to say I returned it. the New 56V systems use a completely different batter and the higher amperage batteries are approaching four hundred dollars just for the battery.
I told a couple people in my family about getting a corded mower once and they just scoffed at me and extolled the "virtues" of their gas-powered mowers. I was pretty annoyed at their condescending attitude about it, as if they had the moral high ground on the issue.
As for why I maintain my lawn, well I have dogs, and dogs might enjoy sniffing tall grass, but they run a lot less than they do on short grass. We had both this year because we were too busy to mow for awhile and the difference in their behavior was pretty stark.
Also when you do finally mow it again with thick grass it takes at least twice as long to mow the lawn because the mower can't handle it as easily.