Best Battery Mowers and Tractors for Mulching Your Grass

Battery push mowers are best suited to smaller yards because of their run times, which are generally 45 to 50 minutes, according to our testing. But battery technology continues to improve, and some of the best performers can provide 70 minutes or more of run time. Many manufacturers also now include multiple batteries, allowing you to quickly swap them for extended mowing jobs.

Battery self-propelled mowers cut grass just as well as push mowers, but because they have motors that allow them to move without requiring a forceful push, they often have shorter run times. This slight drawback is often mitigated with extra batteries included with your purchase.

Electric riding mowers are typically pricier than walk-behind models, but they’re faster and cover more ground. They’re a great option if you have a bigger lawn or have impaired mobility. Electric battery-powered riding mowers are too new a category for us to judge long-term predicted reliability or owner satisfaction.

To get you ratings and reviews of the latest models by early spring, we travel to our mower testing facility in Fort Myers, Fla., to conduct tests in late winter at grounds we prepare each year. 

We plant 1,800 pounds of grass seed (predominantly annual rye, prized for its dense growth) and cut 500,000 square feet of grass in three modes—mulching, side-discharging, and bagging, producing a total of 3,000 pounds of clippings. We mow both level turf and slopes to get a feel for each model, and we review their convenience features.

Each model’s Overall Score incorporates all of that performance data along with predicted reliability and owner satisfaction ratings from our latest member surveys. We leverage data on more than 46,807 lawn mowers owned by 39,051 CR members that were purchased new between 2014 and 2024.

Note: For models with noise-at-ear ratings that are unsatisfactory—or less than satisfactory—we recommend that you use hearing protection. Also, CR doesn’t judge zero-turn-radius mowers for bagging because our research shows that just 11 percent of their users bag their clippings.