By I just replaced one of the last gasoline-powered machines that I own: my 10 year old Ariens snowblower. The replacement? The brand new 2-stage snowblower from Ego. We all know that batteries and the cold don’t go well together, so how does the Ego Power+ Snowblower hold up? Let’s find out.
It’s always a little weird making videos like this … about a snowblower of all things, but it does fit right in with what I typically talk about on the channel. It’s been a slippery slope for me as I’ve slowly been electrifying everything in my life from my car, to my house with solar and battery storage, and all of my other gasoline-powered machines one by one.
One of the leading brands when it comes to things like lawn mowers, leaf blowers, edgers, and now snowblowers, is Ego. To be upfront before I get accused of making a sponsored video for them … this isn’t. I never do product reviews for money or compensation. And when it comes to Ego, I’ve paid cash for every Ego product that I own.
If you saw my review of the latest Ego mower, you’ll know that I’m a huge fan. I’m able to mow my entire yard on a single battery charge. But I’ve held off on going electric with my snowblower for one big reason … New England winters. We don’t always get a lot of snow around here though. I grew up in upstate New York near Rochester, which can get some serious snow. But here in the Boston area it can be hit or miss. Most of the time you’re talking about snow that’s 5-6 inches, or on rare occasions a foot or more at a time. The past few years have actually been really light on snow. But when we do get hit by a sizable nor’easter, it can be really problematic. So while most of the electric snowblowers on the market could easily handle a few inches of snow here and there, it’s those less frequent storms I was most worried about.
My house is located on the bend in the road, so the snow plow tends to dump a more sizable amount of snow at the end of our driveway than our neighbors. If we get about a foot of snowfall, I can expect a 2-3 foot high snow pile of plowed snow at the end of the driveway. And in the worst case scenarios, the end of our driveway feels like we’re trying to keep the white walkers out of Westeros.
The first electric snowblower that looked like it had the power and capability to stand up to the challenge arrived this past year. It’s the Ego Power+ 24 inch self-propelled 2-stage snowblower, which at the time I’m recording this, sells for about $1,300. It’s pricey. If you don’t know the difference between a single stage and 2-stage snowblower, it really comes down to the mechanism that chews through the snow and throws it out the chute. In a single stage snowblower the auger not only breaks up the snow, but it throws it up and out the chute in one motion. A 2-stage snowblower has a spinning auger that breaks up the snow and ice depositing it into the center of the snowblower where a separate impeller throws that out the chute. A single stage snowblower is usually fine for snow under 8 inches, and a 2-stage is better for deeper and more challenging snow build up.
I had a single stage snowblower here my first few winters in the house. It was a nightmare. My wife and I during the worst snow storms could be outside for hours digging out … even with the single stage snowblower working its heart out. It was a sad sight.
So my biggest concern with a battery snowblower wasn’t just how many stages it had, but its battery capacity and longevity. This Ego comes with two 56V 7.5 Ah lithium batteries. Now, I have an advantage since I also have several other pieces of Ego gear, which means I have several other batteries I can use if I run out of power on the included batteries during use. If you don’t have spare batteries, your experience is going to vary a lot … which I’ll get to in a bit.
As for features, the Ego has most of what you’d expect. It has a 24 inch clearing width and 20 inches of height. Variable drive control for propelling the snowblower forwards or in reverse, as well as a separate auger speed control. The housing is a mix of metal and plastic. The parts that need the most strength and durability are all metal, like the front housing, handle bars, and chute. The remaining bits that are plastic is actually a nice touch since you won’t have to worry about rusting. It also makes the snowblower much lighter than its gasoline counterparts, which makes it easier to control as a result. There’s also a headlight, which is a nice touch, but I’ve never found these to be super useful on any snowblower, so I can take it or leave it.
All of the controls are laid out nicely in between the handles. You’ve got your chute direction and height controls at the top. The auger and drive controls are located closest to you. And of course the obligatory safety controls on the handles themselves that act as a dead man’s switch that stop the auger and movement when you let go.
There’s a decent plastic tool clipped to the back of the housing for clearing out jams in the chute or auger, which is par for the course with any snowblower like this. Bottom line: it has all of the controls you’d expect, but in this price point you sometimes get heated handles on gas versions. The lack of heated handles makes sense to me since that would just run down the battery faster … which brings me to how it actually handles … and how long those two batteries last.
As if on cue, Mother Nature threw a pretty sizable amount of snow at me a few weeks after I picked up the Ego. We got about 14-15” of snow that let me get a good sense for how this snowblower will hold up to a typical heavy snowfall for my area. And yes, I know … 15” isn’t that much compared to some areas, but like I said, that 15” inches usually ends up being over 24” at the end of the driveway.
Two things surprised me the first time I spun it up. The first was how loud it was. I’m used to how quiet my Ego mower is compared to gasoline versions, and my neighbor has the single stage Ego snowblower, which is also pretty quiet. While this version is much quieter than my Ariens, it’s still much louder than I was expecting. It’s got a higher, more shrill sound to it, but wearing a pair of AirPods blocked the worst of it out. With my Ariens I had to wear ear plugs … a pair of headphones wouldn’t have been enough. Being able to listen to music or a podcast while snow blowing was a first for me.
The second thing that surprised me was how easily this thing chewed through the snow. I don’t know why I was this surprised given that electric motors are all torque, but wow … it had no trouble hurling the snow 20-30 feet or more. And the motor never sounded like it was struggling at all. That is until I got to the end of the driveway. When I was dealing with the more densely packed, heavier, and deeper snow down there the motor did have to put up more of a fight. The Ego has a turbo mode you can put the auger into, which gave it the extra power it needed to get through it. It hits the battery harder, so you’ll shorten your snow blowing time, but it was the easiest time I’ve ever had at the end of my driveway. In turbo the Ego handled better than the Ariens ever did.
But … the battery life. For a sense of size, my house has a single car garage, but a driveway that’s double width for a second car parked outside. At its widest it’s about 16.5 feet wide and 42 feet long. Taking in all the variations in shape the driveway’s about 630 square feet or 58.5 square meters. I got almost all of the way done snow blowing everything when the two batteries gave out. Since I already had other batteries available from my mower, leaf blower, and edger, I just grabbed two 5Ah batteries, swapped them out, and finished up. I only needed about another 5 minutes to complete the job.
If I had kept the power down for the upper portion of the driveway, I probably would have had enough extra power to use at the end of the driveway on a single charge. But it’s an important thing to keep a note of. These 7.5Ah batteries are huge and take an hour on the rapid charger or over two hours on the standard charger. So if I didn’t have those spares, I would have had to wait an hour or so before I could have finished things up. Not horrible, but something to keep in mind. And if you want to buy a replacement battery, a single 7.5Ah battery goes for over $400 right now on Amazon. Not cheap. But given that I still have Ego batteries that are working great after 5 years … they should last a long time.
Overall, I’m extremely impressed by the Ego Power+ Snowblower. It has far more power to chew through snow than my Ariens gasoline snowblower. While not quiet, it’s much quieter and absolutely easier to control than my gasoline-powered Ariens. I don’t have much doubt that this will be able to handle the worst that New England can throw at it, but the big question you’ll have to answer for yourself is if the price premium is worth it … and if the included batteries are all you’ll need.
At $1,300 the Ego Power+ isn’t cheap and it’s going up against comparable snowblowers from Ariens at around $1,000. For me it’s absolutely worth it from the user experience alone. My Ariens always felt like I was wrestling a bull to get it to do what I wanted. The Ego is easier to control and more comfortable to use … plus no more oil changes or gasoline. The easier maintenance is a huge plus in my book. My wife never wanted to use the Ariens, but I think she’ll be more than comfortable using the Ego … another plus in my book.
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