People with disabilities who do not have sufficient strength or endurance to move themselves about -- or who do not prefer to do so -- will often find use of a powered wheelchair more suitable for their circumstances than use of a manual wheelchair. Powered wheelchairs have the clear advantage of moving about with the assistance of their powered drive systems instead of requiring the user to laboriously use their muscles to do so.

However, powered wheelchairs have several clear disadvantages. Unlike the foldable or collapsible manual wheelchairs, these cannot easily be loaded onto a motor vehicle. As alluded to two paragraphs ago, the task of disassembling a powered wheelchair -- particularly an older model -- can be particularly difficult in light of the very profound weight of these units. In addition, the range of a powered wheelchair is dictated by the available charge of its battery system. There is the additional disadvantage of having to recharge the powered wheelchair, a process which often takes a substantial amount of time, rendering the wheelchair unusable during the recharge period. It is a common practice for owners of powered wheelchairs to charge the wheelchair batteries at night while they are sleeping.

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