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Surely the weight of a tractor pales in comparison to the person sitting inside? The heavy weight is for that big engine with a lot of torque. Can a lighter wei

Surely the weight of a tractor pales in comparison to the person sitting inside? The heavy weight is for that big engine with a lot of torque. Can a lighter weight tractor pull its load?

Kirby64 1y ago
I’d assume all the functionality inside the cab, the space needed, seat, controls, windscreen, AC inside the cabin, etc, add up to quite a bit of weight. If you went truly driverless without a cabin you could save a ton of weight.
- bluGill 1y ago
  Maybe a ton at the most - but the tractor weights far more than a ton. Actually more weight is a good thing in tractors because that allows for more traction.
  - hollerith 1y ago
    Is that really true? The heavier the tank, the more often it gets stuck and needs to be pulled out by other vehicles.
    - saalweachter 1y ago
      Tractors tend to spread their load with more, gianter, wider tires. The trade-off for making the tractor larger is that you can pull wider and multiple or multi-function implements to do the entire thing faster in one pass. The larger contact patch for having an absurd number of wheels reduces soil compaction and reduces the chance you get stuck; working in fewer passes further reduces soil compaction and prevents you from getting stuck (since in the ideal case, you're doing one pass on solid ground, and never driving over tilled soil).
    - bluGill 1y ago
      Tractors get stuck when they drive in mud (and other mud like soils) all the time. However when driving on not-mud it is true. That is the trade off, the heavier you are the more care you need to take about mud. I suspect tanks get stuck often in part because that is fun and in part because they need to train troops how to get them unstuck and so they intentionally send tanks into mud - which is to say in a real war the generals might (should) avoid getting stuck, but in training it is important to get stuck often. I'm not a military expert though, but that is my opinion on tanks.
  - Kirby64 1y ago
    More weight over specific areas is good. By removing weight from the cab, you can add it in places you actually want it. I.e. over the wheels.
    - bluGill 1y ago
      Tractors are not cars - weight balance doesn't make nearly as difference. Between lower speeds, lack of suspension, and all wheel drive it doesn't matter.
      - Kirby64 1y ago
        Weight balance absolutely makes a difference. If you don’t have enough weight on the front of the tractor, for instance, certain implements are nonfunctional. You need to balance weight from front to back. Standard issue parts of tractors is adding weight boxes to either the front or back of the tractor to balance the weight of the implement on the other side.
        bluGill 1y ago
        Fair enough - but the humans and the need for a cab is not significant. Those weights are still added based on the implement, and removed for other operations. They are also heavier than the cab + human in many cases. They are also added in front of the front axle, or behind the rear, while the human weight affects both axles (not evenly, but close enough)
        Kirby64 1y ago
        So, you're agreeing with me then? Removing a cab and a human removes at minimum 300-500 lbs (when you account for human weight, all the framing, window glass, HVAC components, seats, screens, etc etc) which is balanced somewhat evenly across both axles. That means you can take that weight, and use only a portion of it to balance the tractor. Less weight overall.
        1y ago
scythe 1y ago
What you could achieve with a driverless tractor is using two smaller ones instead of one big one. Since the driver's effective wage leaves the cost equation, the number of tractors can potentially be much larger. Come to think of it, this might also benefit small landholders eventually by reducing the minimum amount of land required to fund a single tractor.
- bluGill 1y ago
  I can't figure out how to link, but if you search me you will see elsewhere that I explained that bigger is better for the soil. Most small landholders should sell and move to the city. You need a fair amount of size to make a decent living selling something cheap. Though my biggest worry is the medium sized farmers - wasting $10/acre in extra chemicals when you have 600 acres is only $6000 - you probably won't even notice it and in any case not wasting it costs investment too. When you have 6000 acres though that $10 is a larger number and you can afford to put a lot of money in better whatever to not waste it.
  - rangestransform 1y ago
    The American voter is too ideologically attached to the idea of the small family farm and opposed to the big scary boogeyman corporation to support any policy that encourages consolidation of farming and farmers to move to th city
    - bluGill 1y ago
      Not just American - most of Europe is even worse.
  - scythe 1y ago
    In order to link, you right-click (or equivalent) on the time stamp of the post, which on your comment currently says "4 hours ago". That creates a link like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44889842 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44889842 > if you search me you will see elsewhere that I explained that bigger is better for the soil. I read through your argument here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44889514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44889514 These claims are interesting but I did not find information to substantiate them with a brief search. I did find this: https://mupages.marshall.edu/sites/nexus/2025/01/17/types-of-tractors-and-their-impact-on-soil-compaction/#gsc.tab=0 https://mupages.marshall.edu/sites/nexus/2025/01/17/types-of... > Most small landholders should sell and move to the city. Economically, this has been true for decades irrespective of developments in autonomous vehicles. But city life is miserable, and there will always be people trying to escape it on the farm.
bluedino 1y ago
Even a small utility tractor is over 10,000lbs

Surely the weight of a tractor pales in comparison to the person sitting inside? The heavy weight is for that big engine with a lot of torque. Can a lighter weight tractor pull its load?

Kirby64 1y ago

I’d assume all the functionality inside the cab, the space needed, seat, controls, windscreen, AC inside the cabin, etc, add up to quite a bit of weight. If you went truly driverless without a cabin you could save a ton of weight.

bluGill 1y ago
Maybe a ton at the most - but the tractor weights far more than a ton. Actually more weight is a good thing in tractors because that allows for more traction.
- hollerith 1y ago
  Is that really true? The heavier the tank, the more often it gets stuck and needs to be pulled out by other vehicles.
  - saalweachter 1y ago
    Tractors tend to spread their load with more, gianter, wider tires. The trade-off for making the tractor larger is that you can pull wider and multiple or multi-function implements to do the entire thing faster in one pass. The larger contact patch for having an absurd number of wheels reduces soil compaction and reduces the chance you get stuck; working in fewer passes further reduces soil compaction and prevents you from getting stuck (since in the ideal case, you're doing one pass on solid ground, and never driving over tilled soil).
  - bluGill 1y ago
    Tractors get stuck when they drive in mud (and other mud like soils) all the time. However when driving on not-mud it is true. That is the trade off, the heavier you are the more care you need to take about mud. I suspect tanks get stuck often in part because that is fun and in part because they need to train troops how to get them unstuck and so they intentionally send tanks into mud - which is to say in a real war the generals might (should) avoid getting stuck, but in training it is important to get stuck often. I'm not a military expert though, but that is my opinion on tanks.
- Kirby64 1y ago
  More weight over specific areas is good. By removing weight from the cab, you can add it in places you actually want it. I.e. over the wheels.
  - bluGill 1y ago
    Tractors are not cars - weight balance doesn't make nearly as difference. Between lower speeds, lack of suspension, and all wheel drive it doesn't matter.
    - Kirby64 1y ago
      Weight balance absolutely makes a difference. If you don’t have enough weight on the front of the tractor, for instance, certain implements are nonfunctional. You need to balance weight from front to back. Standard issue parts of tractors is adding weight boxes to either the front or back of the tractor to balance the weight of the implement on the other side.
      - bluGill 1y ago
        Fair enough - but the humans and the need for a cab is not significant. Those weights are still added based on the implement, and removed for other operations. They are also heavier than the cab + human in many cases. They are also added in front of the front axle, or behind the rear, while the human weight affects both axles (not evenly, but close enough)
        Kirby64 1y ago
        So, you're agreeing with me then? Removing a cab and a human removes at minimum 300-500 lbs (when you account for human weight, all the framing, window glass, HVAC components, seats, screens, etc etc) which is balanced somewhat evenly across both axles. That means you can take that weight, and use only a portion of it to balance the tractor. Less weight overall.
        1y ago

scythe 1y ago

What you could achieve with a driverless tractor is using two smaller ones instead of one big one. Since the driver's effective wage leaves the cost equation, the number of tractors can potentially be much larger. Come to think of it, this might also benefit small landholders eventually by reducing the minimum amount of land required to fund a single tractor.

bluGill 1y ago
I can't figure out how to link, but if you search me you will see elsewhere that I explained that bigger is better for the soil. Most small landholders should sell and move to the city. You need a fair amount of size to make a decent living selling something cheap. Though my biggest worry is the medium sized farmers - wasting $10/acre in extra chemicals when you have 600 acres is only $6000 - you probably won't even notice it and in any case not wasting it costs investment too. When you have 6000 acres though that $10 is a larger number and you can afford to put a lot of money in better whatever to not waste it.
- rangestransform 1y ago
  The American voter is too ideologically attached to the idea of the small family farm and opposed to the big scary boogeyman corporation to support any policy that encourages consolidation of farming and farmers to move to th city
  - bluGill 1y ago
    Not just American - most of Europe is even worse.
- scythe 1y ago
  In order to link, you right-click (or equivalent) on the time stamp of the post, which on your comment currently says "4 hours ago". That creates a link like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44889842 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44889842 > if you search me you will see elsewhere that I explained that bigger is better for the soil. I read through your argument here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44889514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44889514 These claims are interesting but I did not find information to substantiate them with a brief search. I did find this: https://mupages.marshall.edu/sites/nexus/2025/01/17/types-of-tractors-and-their-impact-on-soil-compaction/#gsc.tab=0 https://mupages.marshall.edu/sites/nexus/2025/01/17/types-of... > Most small landholders should sell and move to the city. Economically, this has been true for decades irrespective of developments in autonomous vehicles. But city life is miserable, and there will always be people trying to escape it on the farm.

bluedino 1y ago

Even a small utility tractor is over 10,000lbs