Electric tractor

[Pheasant Surprise]

Trouble is, most houses don't have 3ph....

Yeah I know the upper limit really is 7kW on a 32A singe phase domestic circuit, but that's still enough to charge a 100kWh battery car overnight from completely empty. Mostly it will be topping up, as there are few people that will drive the full electric range home and back every day. Still not ideal though.

 

[Greenbeast]

Yeah when it comes to charging tractors, farms are pretty ideal, most could have a decent DC charger fitted

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Yeah when it comes to charging tractors, farms are pretty ideal, most could have a decent DC charger fitted

Unit cost still needs to reduce. You can buy a simple Tesla 22kW charger that will run single or three phase, up to that limit for about £460. Just had a look at a price list from an EV supplier, and a 50kW fast DC charger setup is around £20K. So you'd need to be doing one heck of a lot of charging to recoup that.

Edit - to be fair the Tesla unit, isn't really a "charger" its more of a 'pass through' box with the standard 7-pin Mennekes Type 2 charging cable and a wall unit that does some basic comms with the car. There's not much too it. Its not a full blown AC to DC charger (thats in the car).

 

[Greenbeast]

Unit cost still needs to reduce. You can buy a simple Tesla 22kW charger that will run single or three phase, up to that limit for about £460. Just had a look at a price list from an EV supplier, and a 50kW fast DC charger setup is around £20K. So you'd need to be doing one heck of a lot of charging to recoup that.

Yes and i think it's pretty obvious that it will, but there is currently zero demand, same as battery cost is dropping.
And farms that rely on electric tractors will want it to charge in minimal time i expect, even if it can do a day's work without charging, it's those times you finish late and need to start in the early hours again

 

[joe soapy]

Will probably split into two types of tractors, full electric for working local to yard like a scraper or loader for instance,
and a prime mover bio diesel electric , When parked up could be connected to power the grid. Think there is already a tracked version out there.
big combines would be ideal set up like that, having a 400 hp engine sat idol all winter is a waste of resource, just needs the safety issues with electric sorted out

 

[holywell farmer]

That was a tractor with a generator for powering implements- not itself?

Yes

 

[Steevo]

Will probably split into two types of tractors, full electric for working local to yard like a scraper or loader for instance,
and a prime mover bio diesel electric , When parked up could be connected to power the grid. Think there is already a tracked version out there.
big combines would be ideal set up like that, having a 400 hp engine sat idol all winter is a waste of resource, just needs the safety issues with electric sorted out

Would this really be economic to generate? Seems like wearing out an engine before the rest of the tractor for not a lot of gain.