I've been told the big advantage of electrics is the speed control
while towing. I did a little testing with a gas unit and I feel it's
perfectly suited for glider operations. Quiet, powerful, good speed
control and they run forever on a tank of gas. I'm just curious as to
how much better the electrics are at towing compared to gas. When you
consider the hassle of electrics (charging, battery degradation over
time, expensive battery replacement every 3-5 years, giving out before
days end, etc.), is it worth it? I'm getting a lot of advice from
people (a lot of them don't own golf carts by the way) to go with
electric. Are the electrics that much better?

We use an electric golf cart at Avenal. It is an older EZ-Go, so it
has the old style speed control (pre 1986) which is far less efficient
and actually has a dead spot right were we need it, but it still works
basically just fine. That said, a single charge does last all day, of
much necessary tugging and much unnecessary tugging, some joy-riding
and a bunch of 'milk runs' back and forth from the clubhouse to the
flightline (about 1000'). At the end of the day when everyone goes
away and I have our private/empty airfield to myself, I even break out
the beer and drink and drive on our 400' wide dirt runway using my
feet to steer with the remaining charge before parking it in it's
charger. Ours needs a front end alignment and pulls a little to the
right (Hitler approved!), so if I do not steer at all it describes
about a 300' circle, but our field slightly slopes so each 'lap' my
circle drifts about 15' downhill

The newer, post 1986 EZ-Go's get even better 'electron mileage' with
their highly improved speed control, and have no such dead spot. There
is even a nifty aftermarket solar panel roof that is made for the
carts to extend charge, but I'm sure we will never get one (were too
cheap to buy a normal roof!) http://www.suncatchergolf.com/ We had a
4wd Yamaha(?) Mule there for a while, and man was that thing fun! (no
drinking and driving on that machine, it does like 30mph and you
actually could flip it if you were really retarded...) It too had
excellent speed control and was even strong enough to drag a 2-33
across miles of deeply plowed fields (although it took 4 of us
standing in the bed of it for traction and 2 in the cab...). If you
can get a good deal on either, either one would immensely help at the
operation, but the electric golf cart fits more in line with our green
sport and is nicer to be walking wings of planes behind it. For
electric golf carts, get one made after 86' though... and get one
with a damn roof, or get one of those solar dealies.

-Paul