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There aren't any combine models that sell more than a few thousand units per year. Individual parts in the combine benefit greatly from mass manufacturing, b
by bryanlarsen 1y ago
There aren't any combine models that sell more than a few thousand units per year. Individual parts in the combine benefit greatly from mass manufacturing, but the combines themselves don't really. Small harvester drones on the other hand could have a much larger sales volume, and really take advantage of mass manufacturing.
- bgnn 1y agoThis is a very good point, but what about the maintenance of managing multiple small harvesters vs one big one? Latter is riskier if fails but you don't need to deal with a fleet, so easier for the farmer.
- bryanlarsen 1y agoMaintenance would be a huge advantage for drone fleets, I would think. Harvest is often a ~2 week window. If your combine is down for a good chunk of that, you can get into real trouble. OTOH if one of your fleet goes down, just sideline it and deal with it during your other 50 weeks. And it can be dealt with by shipping back to factory rather than incredibly expensive field calls. As they say in IT: cattle, not pets.