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No, the farmer wants an electric tractor, possibly with a small diesel engine to charge the battery as needed. Fuel is an insanely high cost for farmers, and th

by voisin 2y ago

No, the farmer wants an electric tractor, possibly with a small diesel engine to charge the battery as needed. Fuel is an insanely high cost for farmers, and the complexity of the ICE systems means high maintenance and repair costs too.

cjbgkagh 2y ago
I was about to post that the diesel-electric technology for tractors just wasn’t ready yet but I looked it up and apparently it is. Electric motors are amazing and I guess the efficiency lost in converting mechanical energy to electricity and back is partly made up for by running the engine more efficiently and by partly by not needing a transmission.
- tetha 2y ago
  Also, farmers have room to put down wind turbines on their land. Quite a few of them up here in northern germany have picked up subsidies and are now generating power from just a few square meters of land. One larger farming business also has a biogas burner. With such a setup and a bit of energy storage somewhere, electric vehicles look even more attractive.
  - cjbgkagh 2y ago
    The tractors I’m more familiar with are 500hp and when in use they run 18+ hour days a very long way from infrastructure. It would be nice to replace those with diesel-electric for maintenance reasons but I highly doubt there is a viable fully electric solution. We would be more likely to find alternatives to plowing and other more efficient farming practices.
    - voisin 2y ago
      > a viable fully electric solution There are already major pieces of mining equipment and trucks for moving mining material that operate on this technology. If it works for them I don’t see why farming would be more challenging.
      - cjbgkagh 2y ago
        I think you'll find that this imagined generality does not go as far as you would like. Mines tend to be on hard ground while farms tend to be on dirt, make a tractor too heavy and it'll get bogged. When the tractor is an hours drive away from the nearest power outlet it just does not seem realistic. Diesel-electric can make a lot of sense, the fuel is the same and it does the same thing but more efficiently and with lower maintenance costs. I don't hate the idea of fully electric, if anyone can make the math work then great, but for the use case I mentioned I highly doubt it.
      - bluGill 2y ago
        Mines do this for equipment that operates a fixed track (they can move the track, but not too often). When the equipment is more than a power cord away from a grid connection they use diesel. However electric is so much cheaper than diesel they will go out of their way to have a less efficient mine if it is reasonably possible.
        voisin 2y ago
        > Mines do this for equipment that operates a fixed track Ok, ignore mines (though I don’t think this statement is universally true), you can find the same examples in forestry where equipment out in the bush runs on electric batteries being charged by small onboard ICE engines, and the logging trucks themselves are switching to this as well. None are on tracks.
        cjbgkagh 2y ago
        Onboard ICE sounds more like diesel electric than fully electric. The addition of some batteries for efficiency and peak power availability doesn’t change things all much I would still call that diesel electric.
    - 8note 2y ago
      What does far away from infrastructure mean? You have to fly in barrels of fuel once a month?
      - cjbgkagh 2y ago
        It means two hours drive away from the nearest paved road. Massive fuel trucks load up local tanks, smaller fuel trucks fill up from there and take it directly to the tractor in the field, a drive that can easily take an hour on its own. Tractors are slow and usually operating out in some distant field, you can’t bring the tractor to a central point every time you need to power up and you can’t run cables that long for those power levels. It’s really hard to beat diesel for utility.
- voisin 2y ago
  The technology is so good, Stellantis is putting it in the next gen Ramcharger trucks. Eliminates range anxiety while maintaining all the benefits of electric.
pm90 2y ago
Yeah, easy to get electricity than fuel to remote farms. Perhaps they could setup cooperatives that operate solar/wind farms to recharge their equipment?
- jillesvangurp 2y ago
  Most farms have more than enough space to generate all of the power they need. A few solar panels go a long way. Even in winter, these things still generate power. Add some wind mills (which some farms already have) and they'd be pretty much self sufficient. The rest can come from the grid. Though most farmers would probably end up being net producers. The main factor slowing down the transition to battery electric is the cost of batteries. As this comes down, more equipment is going to be electrified. But especially heavy equipment needs a lot of power and therefor relatively large batteries. What's prohibitively expensive this year might be totally doable just a few years down the line.
persnickety 2y ago
Like this? https://farmdroid.com/product-sheet/ https://farmdroid.com/product-sheet/
bluGill 2y ago
> small diesel engine to charge the battery as needed. Fuel is an insanely high cost for farmers, and the complexity of the ICE systems means high maintenance and repair costs too. That is what they want, but that isn't something they can get. A 100 horsepower tractor will be expected to deliver 100 horsepower for 15 hours without stopping (it is common to eat while driving, though you will stop for a bathroom break here and there). That means you need to have a 100 horsepower engine. Contrast a Tesla which is rated at 600 horsepower - but realistically only can give you that for a few seconds before you are at speed and then only needs to deliver about 20 horsepower. The batteries in a Tesla would run that 100 horsepower tractor for maybe an hour, so a 20 horsepower engine in a Tesla could easially extend you a lot of range. I work for John Deere. I don't speak for the company. I can tell you that we are looking at electric for small tractors - there are a lot of people who only use small tractors for a couple hours per day (or less). We have hybrid tractors for some applications, but there are others that hybird isn't useful. The rules of chemistry tell us that a battery will never be useful for large tractors, and even small tractors it is questionable if batteries can ever be good enough to go all day (if you look at our electric mower the dealer is required to examine your lot to make sure it isn't too big). We have tried things like put a 1km cord on a tractor - I don't know what the status of that is.
- eagerpace 2y ago
  Big, cheap batteries. Tractors don’t care about weight or speed. They don’t need fancy chemistries. I’d also think they could find a way to deploy a massive solar halo-type array since they’re working in big empty fields.
  - Arrath 2y ago
    Tractors may not care about weight, but soil does. Current tractors cause soil compaction issues in farm fields, even heavier weight-inefficient-battery laden tractors would be that much worse.
- voisin 2y ago
  > The rules of chemistry tell us that a battery will never be useful for large tractors, and even small tractors it is questionable if batteries can ever be good enough to go all day How can batteries work in a transport truck hauling massive weight long distances but we can’t figure it out for tractors? How can batteries work in mining equipment and logging trucks (charged by small ICE engines on board) for long hours per day, not for tractors? I am having trouble understanding what the fundamental differences are.

by voisin 2y ago

cjbgkagh 2y ago

I was about to post that the diesel-electric technology for tractors just wasn’t ready yet but I looked it up and apparently it is. Electric motors are amazing and I guess the efficiency lost in converting mechanical energy to electricity and back is partly made up for by running the engine more efficiently and by partly by not needing a transmission.

tetha 2y ago
Also, farmers have room to put down wind turbines on their land. Quite a few of them up here in northern germany have picked up subsidies and are now generating power from just a few square meters of land. One larger farming business also has a biogas burner. With such a setup and a bit of energy storage somewhere, electric vehicles look even more attractive.
- cjbgkagh 2y ago
  The tractors I’m more familiar with are 500hp and when in use they run 18+ hour days a very long way from infrastructure. It would be nice to replace those with diesel-electric for maintenance reasons but I highly doubt there is a viable fully electric solution. We would be more likely to find alternatives to plowing and other more efficient farming practices.
  - voisin 2y ago
    > a viable fully electric solution There are already major pieces of mining equipment and trucks for moving mining material that operate on this technology. If it works for them I don’t see why farming would be more challenging.
    - cjbgkagh 2y ago
      I think you'll find that this imagined generality does not go as far as you would like. Mines tend to be on hard ground while farms tend to be on dirt, make a tractor too heavy and it'll get bogged. When the tractor is an hours drive away from the nearest power outlet it just does not seem realistic. Diesel-electric can make a lot of sense, the fuel is the same and it does the same thing but more efficiently and with lower maintenance costs. I don't hate the idea of fully electric, if anyone can make the math work then great, but for the use case I mentioned I highly doubt it.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      Mines do this for equipment that operates a fixed track (they can move the track, but not too often). When the equipment is more than a power cord away from a grid connection they use diesel. However electric is so much cheaper than diesel they will go out of their way to have a less efficient mine if it is reasonably possible.
      - voisin 2y ago
        > Mines do this for equipment that operates a fixed track Ok, ignore mines (though I don’t think this statement is universally true), you can find the same examples in forestry where equipment out in the bush runs on electric batteries being charged by small onboard ICE engines, and the logging trucks themselves are switching to this as well. None are on tracks.
        cjbgkagh 2y ago
        Onboard ICE sounds more like diesel electric than fully electric. The addition of some batteries for efficiency and peak power availability doesn’t change things all much I would still call that diesel electric.
  - 8note 2y ago
    What does far away from infrastructure mean? You have to fly in barrels of fuel once a month?
    - cjbgkagh 2y ago
      It means two hours drive away from the nearest paved road. Massive fuel trucks load up local tanks, smaller fuel trucks fill up from there and take it directly to the tractor in the field, a drive that can easily take an hour on its own. Tractors are slow and usually operating out in some distant field, you can’t bring the tractor to a central point every time you need to power up and you can’t run cables that long for those power levels. It’s really hard to beat diesel for utility.
voisin 2y ago
The technology is so good, Stellantis is putting it in the next gen Ramcharger trucks. Eliminates range anxiety while maintaining all the benefits of electric.

pm90 2y ago

Yeah, easy to get electricity than fuel to remote farms. Perhaps they could setup cooperatives that operate solar/wind farms to recharge their equipment?

jillesvangurp 2y ago
Most farms have more than enough space to generate all of the power they need. A few solar panels go a long way. Even in winter, these things still generate power. Add some wind mills (which some farms already have) and they'd be pretty much self sufficient. The rest can come from the grid. Though most farmers would probably end up being net producers. The main factor slowing down the transition to battery electric is the cost of batteries. As this comes down, more equipment is going to be electrified. But especially heavy equipment needs a lot of power and therefor relatively large batteries. What's prohibitively expensive this year might be totally doable just a few years down the line.

persnickety 2y ago

Like this? https://farmdroid.com/product-sheet/ https://farmdroid.com/product-sheet/

bluGill 2y ago

> small diesel engine to charge the battery as needed. Fuel is an insanely high cost for farmers, and the complexity of the ICE systems means high maintenance and repair costs too. That is what they want, but that isn't something they can get. A 100 horsepower tractor will be expected to deliver 100 horsepower for 15 hours without stopping (it is common to eat while driving, though you will stop for a bathroom break here and there). That means you need to have a 100 horsepower engine. Contrast a Tesla which is rated at 600 horsepower - but realistically only can give you that for a few seconds before you are at speed and then only needs to deliver about 20 horsepower. The batteries in a Tesla would run that 100 horsepower tractor for maybe an hour, so a 20 horsepower engine in a Tesla could easially extend you a lot of range. I work for John Deere. I don't speak for the company. I can tell you that we are looking at electric for small tractors - there are a lot of people who only use small tractors for a couple hours per day (or less). We have hybrid tractors for some applications, but there are others that hybird isn't useful. The rules of chemistry tell us that a battery will never be useful for large tractors, and even small tractors it is questionable if batteries can ever be good enough to go all day (if you look at our electric mower the dealer is required to examine your lot to make sure it isn't too big). We have tried things like put a 1km cord on a tractor - I don't know what the status of that is.

eagerpace 2y ago
Big, cheap batteries. Tractors don’t care about weight or speed. They don’t need fancy chemistries. I’d also think they could find a way to deploy a massive solar halo-type array since they’re working in big empty fields.
- Arrath 2y ago
  Tractors may not care about weight, but soil does. Current tractors cause soil compaction issues in farm fields, even heavier weight-inefficient-battery laden tractors would be that much worse.
voisin 2y ago
> The rules of chemistry tell us that a battery will never be useful for large tractors, and even small tractors it is questionable if batteries can ever be good enough to go all day How can batteries work in a transport truck hauling massive weight long distances but we can’t figure it out for tractors? How can batteries work in mining equipment and logging trucks (charged by small ICE engines on board) for long hours per day, not for tractors? I am having trouble understanding what the fundamental differences are.