Consumer Reports (in May 16, 2023 issue) tested many models of electric-powered and gas-powered leaf blowers and find that the best electric blowers equal or out perform the best gas-powered blowers. Read their report here.
Here, in a nutshell, is their summary:
Which Leaf Blower Performs Better: Gas or Electric?
At first glance, it might look like a draw, with electrics outperforming gas in many tasks, but gas acing it in key areas, like sweeping and loosening. But when you look more closely, electric is the clear winner. That’s because while gas models as a group do well in a few important tests, on average, there are in each instance also at least a few electric leaf blowers that match or beat that performance. In contrast, no gas models are quiet by any stretch, and the best electric leaf blowers we’ve tested match or beat the best gas models in every single test we conduct. The only case to be made here for gas relates to charge times and run times for batteries. If you have a yard with dozens of deciduous trees shedding leaves, gas could make sense. But keep in mind that the batteries for the leaf blowers we’ve tested charge in 5 to 48 minutes and work for an average of nearly 94 minutes.