Golf Carts - gas or electric?

On Friday, December 13, 2019 at 11:36:54 AM UTC-5, Tom wrote:
Reaching out to query about golf carts - we use them to tow gliders (not on a flat surface, plenty of inclines) and transport people. I know there are a lot of different opinions but generally I’m curious what is the prevalent type in use out there - gas or electric?

Both have their ups and downs - I’ve seen some electric ones have problems towing stuff but I’m told that poor battery maintenance was a major factor. We’ve always used gas but because the majority of carts are electric the supply and demand issue causes the gas ones to be more expensive. This is causing me to consider electric.

The prices on these things seem outrageous to me either way (I’m famously frugal or as my friends say “cheap�). But, we use them every day and they are critical to the operation so i don’t want to be dealing with constant problems with old crappy ones.

Thanks for your input.

Regards, Tom

Our club has several gas carts, all very old (to save money), and they often break down. Just the cost of needed engine parts cost more per year than the depreciation of the batteries in an electric cart. (Luckily we have club members with the skills and willingness to do the repairs.) On occasion we had days with 3 carts sitting broken, and nothing to tow the gliders with.

Then we got an electric cart and used it over the last season. It is "only" 11 years old, and in much better shape than our gas carts. It always worked, and never had problems "starting". Everybody loved it. But sometimes it ran out of charge later in the day. That was not surprising since the batteries are 6 years old (and the cart's purchase price was correspondingly low). It was good to have at least one working gas cart in addition to the electric one. On busy days in our club we need 2 carts anyway, to avoid operational delays.

The electric cart (a model with modern electronic motor control) turned out to be easier to control than the gas cart when it comes to gradual application of high torque at zero or low speed. E.g., to start moving a glider when its wheel is in a dip in the ground.

One unexpected advantage of the electric cart was that it is very quiet, so it is easy for the person at the wingtip to communicate by voice with the cart driver.

Battery maintenance needs to be done carefully of course. Our club designated one person to be responsible for it. It is still a challenge since at the end of some days the people putting the equipment away, or starting the day's operations, are not knowledgeable about the battery subtleties or lack information about what happened to the cart after the previous day. Also winter storage is an issue. We're trying out a trickle charger along with an installed battery desulfator.