This is the first decision anybody makes when they buy a cart and there is a lot of confident bad advice about it. The right answer genuinely depends on what you are doing with it.
Where electric wins
Quiet. Not a small thing. You can hold a conversation, you do not wake the house at six in the morning, and on a golf course it matters.
Less maintenance. No oil, no filters, no spark plugs, no carburetor, no fuel going stale over the winter. The maintenance that does exist is battery care, and if you go lithium even that mostly disappears.
Instant torque. An electric motor makes full torque from zero, so an electric cart pulls away from a stop better than a gas cart of similar size.
Cheaper to run. Electricity per mile is a fraction of gas.
Where gas wins
Range and refueling. When a gas cart runs low you put five gallons in it and keep going. When an electric cart runs low you wait hours. If you are working a big property all day, that difference is the whole argument.
Cold weather. This one matters here. Battery capacity drops in the cold. A lead acid pack can lose a meaningful chunk of its usable range on a genuinely cold day. A gas engine does not care once it is running.
Hauling and hills. For sustained heavy work, dragging a trailer, repeatedly climbing a steep driveway, a gas cart will keep doing it without you watching a state of charge gauge.
No pack to replace. The expensive thing about owning an electric cart is that every several years you buy batteries again.
What our winters do to each
Electric carts need a winter plan. The pack has to be stored charged and reset periodically, or it degrades. That is what the seasonal packages exist for.
Gas carts need a different winter plan, mostly around fuel. Untreated fuel sitting in a carburetor over a Montana winter is the number one reason I get spring no-start calls.
Neither one is maintenance free over the winter. They just need different things.
How I actually advise people
Get electric if the cart is mostly for getting around a property, a campground, a neighborhood or a course, use is measured in a few miles a day, and quiet matters. Most people around here are in this group.
Get gas if you are working the cart hard all day, hauling regularly, climbing serious grade, or you are somewhere without convenient charging.
Consider lithium if you want the electric experience but the range or the winter behavior of lead acid has put you off. It solves most of the objections people have to electric, at a higher up front cost.
The used market angle
Around the Flathead, used electric carts are more common and generally cheaper to buy, partly because sellers know the battery question is coming. That can be an opportunity if you go in knowing you may be buying a pack.
Happy to talk through your specific situation. 406.270.9346.