Are EV Electric Tractors viable? Anyone tried one?

[Steve Fischer]

HI their manufacturers think so ( surprise). They say - less parts less to maintain. No fuel pollution- ozone in the ground etc


Has anyone tried one?

 

[Exfarmer]

HI their manufacturers think so ( surprise). They say - less parts less to maintain. No fuel pollution- ozone in the ground etc


Has anyone tried one?

I think they will come, in fact in a form they are already here. It will not be the 700HP behemoths which are the 17 year olds wet dream. Look at our dairy farms the little robots replacing the scraper tractor.
In the field they will be mini versions of large scale sprayers. Local to me a veg grower has a 6 metre autonomous sprayer which sprays just the weeds with glyphosate thanks to dozens of cameras spray nozzles technology I believe borrowed from common rail diesels etc. this is pulled by a 200hp tractor with a lad sitting on it . A perfect situation for an autonomous electric tractor which I suspect could be 20HP in front recharging when an operator has to recharge the tanks.
I think it is @Clive who has surmised the prospect of a fleet of such machines operated from the farm office working no till farming though whether recent experience has put him off a bit

 

[Magnus Oyke]

HI their manufacturers think so ( surprise). They say - less parts less to maintain. No fuel pollution- ozone in the ground etc


Has anyone tried one?

An electric tractor would work if it can do it's work on a charge and crucially, is able to be recharged for the next shift. They could work on yard bound tractors.

IIRC, when the new 1000 series Fendts were launched, someone asked the question if they could be battery powered. The answer was that for a 380kw 1050 to do a full 10 hour shift at full load, the battery alone would need to weigh 50 tonnes using current battery technology. The battery tecnology would need to be such that it would weigh no more than the diesel tank on the current model. Then you have to figure out how to get it charged before the next shift. Doable if the tractor comes home every night and there's sufficent power where ever it's parked, less easy if itdoesn't come home.

 

[Magnus Oyke]

I think they will come, in fact in a form they are already here. It will not be the 700HP behemoths which are the 17 year olds wet dream. Look at our dairy farms the little robots replacing the scraper tractor.
In the field they will be mini versions of large scale sprayers. Local to me a veg grower has a 6 metre autonomous sprayer which sprays just the weeds with glyphosate thanks to dozens of cameras spray nozzles technology I believe borrowed from common rail diesels etc. this is pulled by a 200hp tractor with a lad sitting on it . A perfect situation for an autonomous electric tractor which I suspect could be 20HP in front recharging when an operator has to recharge the tanks.
I think it is @Clive who has surmised the prospect of a fleet of such machines operated from the farm office working no till farming though whether recent experience has put him off a bit

I for one see no issues at all with a fleet of automomous machines........

 

[sjt01]

HI their manufacturers think so ( surprise). They say - less parts less to maintain. No fuel pollution- ozone in the ground etc


Has anyone tried one?

We had a demo a few years ago, traction OK, 3 pt linkage unable to pick up scraper when it got a bit of slurry on it. If it had enough lift capacity it would have made an ideal scraper tractor.

 

[BRB John]

Yeah I suspect they are already here.
Yard work will be the first to go.
If I could get a tractor capable of working flat out for 4 hours per day at around 100hp then you could easily do all the yard work with it plus fertilising, spraying, tedding and raking no problem.

Just because it's not feasible to run a 300hp off of battery doesn't mean it isn't worth it.

Personally I think the government should be launching a grant scheme for such battery powered vehicles... Once they become available.

 

[Exfarmer]

An electric tractor would work if it can do it's work on a charge and crucially, is able to be recharged for the next shift. They could work on yard bound tractors.

IIRC, when the new 1000 series Fendts were launched, someone asked the question if they could be battery powered. The answer was that for a 380kw 1050 to do a full 10 hour shift at full load, the battery alone would need to weigh 50 tonnes using current battery technology. The battery tecnology would need to be such that it would weigh no more than the diesel tank on the current model. Then you have to figure out how to get it charged before the next shift. Doable if the tractor comes home every night and there's sufficent power where ever it's parked, less easy if itdoesn't come home.

I cannot see any chance of a very large tractor being battery powered, not for sheer size as I suspect battery tech may sort that, but just the pure amount of power required for a re charge and the grid connection this would require

 

[Exfarmer]

The real killer is haulage work most other jobs could be done with 20 hp after all we managed 60 years ago , and with autonomous equipment the labour factor will be irrelevant. The far east has a huge amount of equipment of this size and i suspect tyhat the chinese have a range of tractors to match

 

[Cocomac]

Yeah I suspect they are already here.
Yard work will be the first to go.
If I could get a tractor capable of working flat out for 4 hours per day at around 100hp then you could easily do all the yard work with it plus fertilising, spraying, tedding and raking no problem.

Just because it's not feasible to run a 300hp off of battery doesn't mean it isn't worth it.

Personally I think the government should be launching a grant scheme for such battery powered vehicles... Once they become available.

The problem being if you wish to do more than 4 hours a day then what? You can work all day with a diesel powered tractor and if you run low on fuel fill it up and go again in 5 minutes. To me the whole electric vehicles thing is just to make people feel good that there doing something for the environment. It’s something of an ego boost and sort of pointless when china and Africa are putting up new coal fired power stations every year. That said if I lived in an African village and was offered electricity and running water in my house at the cost of some emissions I wouldn’t be saying no. The whole thing is just a massive waste of time and money.

 

[Exfarmer]

The problem being if you wish to do more than 4 hours a day then what? You can work all day with a diesel powered tractor and if you run low on fuel fill it up and go again in 5 minutes. To me the whole electric vehicles thing is just to make people feel good that there doing something for the environment. It’s something of an ego boost and sort of pointless when china and Africa are putting up new coal fired power stations every year. That said if I lived in an African village and was offered electricity and running water in my house at the cost of some emissions I wouldn’t be saying no. The whole thing is just a massive waste of time and money.

but there is far more you can do with it, as you are on Aran you could easily have a turbine and for much of the year you can use this tractor as a battery with V2G as you will only use the tractor for short periods.
There will certainly be farms and situations where these would not be appropriate for , but when the technology comes there will be people who try it and then others will follow

 

[BRB John]

The problem being if you wish to do more than 4 hours a day then what? You can work all day with a diesel powered tractor and if you run low on fuel fill it up and go again in 5 minutes. To me the whole electric vehicles thing is just to make people feel good that there doing something for the environment. It’s something of an ego boost and sort of pointless when china and Africa are putting up new coal fired power stations every year. That said if I lived in an African village and was offered electricity and running water in my house at the cost of some emissions I wouldn’t be saying no. The whole thing is just a massive waste of time and money.

You'd have at least another diesel tractor to do those big jobs.
I can assure you as far as things go investing in electrification is no waste of time or money.

Still think we'll use every drop off fossil fuels we can get our grubby little hands on but I'd rather it take us 500 years instead of 50....

 

[CPF]

I posted this a few months ago

 

[Enry]

Jobs I can see being suitable - scraper, small yard based handler, cubicle bedder, general yard runabout, moving straw etc. 100hp tractor used for backup jobs, topping, moving seed and fert, irrigation pipes, feeder wagon tractor.

Can't see it working with foragers, combines, grain and silage carting, slurry tanking, heavy cultivations where machine often doesnt return to base.

 

[Tractorstant]

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/claa...8u?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop


This is one of the best, explainer videos I have seen recently.


https://www.monarchtractor.com/


Monarch tractors seem to be pretty far down the line, but like all of these AG tech companies, burning funding like you would not believe, yet to see them monetize anything......sometimes think the money would be better spent elsewhere...

 

[Steve Fischer]

Wow thanks for all the responses. My situation is a small 25.3 acre https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10169308274230078&set=pcb.10169308279300078 on the border between Texas & Mexico. I have a tree farm in Washington State and no tractor is necessary there.

The closing is mid-sept and the first priority is water irrigation. Im an attorney in my other life.

This will sort of a hobby farm summers are so hot I couldn't work.( 42 Celsius yesterday) many hours in a row. There is a fair amount of brush and some poor roads. I just got an electric brush hog that can only do small areas. I don't need for it to be autonomous - Im happy to ride it.

My guess is October will be when I really get at it. Meanwhile I will work hard to help defeat Donald Trump ( its embarrassing to have such a shady pig as a contender)


Back to the original question. If there is no great rush - do y'all ( Texas slang) think its good to wait till either prices come down or technology improves?

 

[robs1]

Jobs I can see being suitable - scraper, small yard based handler, cubicle bedder, general yard runabout, moving straw etc. 100hp tractor used for backup jobs, topping, moving seed and fert, irrigation pipes, feeder wagon tractor.

Can't see it working with foragers, combines, grain and silage carting, slurry tanking, heavy cultivations where machine often doesnt return to base.

Doesn't need 100 hp for those we used a db885 as a loader scraper for many years, it was 45hp and pulled 5 tonne trailers at silage time, an autonomous electric scraper would be great, get the cows into the collecting yard and set it to scrape out would be great

 

[Mccormick 94]

When visiting the McCormick factory last year they said they'd built a fully electric vineyard tractor with the best commercial battery tech available. On the flail topper it could do about half a day. Cultivating, about 40 mins. They said electric motors and batteries currently just aren't feasible for anything requiring a continuous high torque demand. Topper was OK as once spinning, it didn't take a huge amount of power to maintain the momentum. Though even this would depend on what and how much you were trying to put through it.

 

[Cocomac]

but there is far more you can do with it, as you are on Aran you could easily have a turbine and for much of the year you can use this tractor as a battery with V2G as you will only use the tractor for short periods.
There will certainly be farms and situations where these would not be appropriate for , but when the technology comes there will be people who try it and then others will follow

Apparently we have the ‘wrong type of wind’ for a turbine, because it swirls and blows from all over instead of coming steadily in the one direction it wears the out too quick. Or so the experts tell me. I can see it for likes of automated feeder wagons, scrapers ect. But for me I don’t think it would work or certainly not with the current state of battery power.

You'd have at least another diesel tractor to do those big jobs.
I can assure you as far as things go investing in electrification is no waste of time or money.

Still think we'll use every drop off fossil fuels we can get our grubby little hands on but I'd rather it take us 500 years instead of 50....

Seems like have 2 machines where one would do? Possibly more appropriate for loadalls than tractors. The other possibility would be being able to swap the batteries out in a timely fashion so you can charge one while using the other. The battery technology simply is t good enough and there are alters such as Hydrogen power.
Making fossil fuels last as long as possible is sensible, I did see a video of a man that had found a way to manufacture oil from co2 and water leaving the by product as oxygen. That would be a better solution to me than battery power.

 

[Enry]

Doesn't need 100 hp for those we used a db885 as a loader scraper for many years, it was 45hp and pulled 5 tonne trailers at silage time, an autonomous electric scraper would be great, get the cows into the collecting yard and set it to scrape out would be great

electric doesnt have to mean autonomous, a simple tractor with a battery and motor for scraping and small electric loader would be great. I only said 100hp so that it would be man enough for the kind of jobs it might be doing on a 300+ cow dairy

 

[Drillman]

Leccy tractors need to follow a totally different design to make the battery layout easy to get at.

Best way is to charge the battery not the tractor make them quick hitch with a small nanourvering battery built in so tractor can shunt round the yard etc.

If you add autonomy into the mix smaller stuff will work as it can operate 24/7/365 which th e human being can’t do