The industry tends to call them “Power Wheelchairs”. At first glance, it seems like an odd name. Battery powered cars are not called “Power Cars”. Actually, that may be a poor example as the word “Power” in that case doesn’t differentiate between gasoline and battery power. In truth, battery driven tools are often described as “Power Tools”. But that is probably more for the macho implication – as in POWERFUL.

By far, the more common term when referring to an item that has a non-battery powered counterpart is the prefix “Electric”: Electric Guitar, Electric Piano, Electric Toothbrush, Electric Shaver, Electric Knife, etc..

Well, here is the reason why. When discussing wheelchairs, people generally refer to them simply as chairs. So Electric Wheelchair suddenly becomes an Electric Chair, which does not have a pleasant connotation...