Hello,
I am not sure how well the electric's work, and in fact can't say I have never seen one, so I would have to assume they are probably not all that efficient.
As for gas sanders, I guess they are more of a standard, but still a pain and seem to be a never ending maintenance problem. We have two gas V-boxes, and it seems we have to keep are fingers crossed each time we go to start up that aux. motor. Nothing but problems.
Why on earth they would put a Briggs on something you have to depend on beats me. We just had to replace the stator and flywheel on a 8.5 HP briggs on our 2 YEAR old spreader that probably has maybe 2 hrs of run time on it. To top it off, the 8.5 is a special motor built just for spreaders, so parts are hard to come buy. You can't just open up Northern Tool and order a new one. They are special order only.
With this past experience, we are are going to go all hydraulic from now on. The whole aux motor thing seems somewhat foolish anymore, but, I guess if you are on a budget (which believe me, we are not), then I would probably stick with a gas model over an electric.
steveair