Oil & Fuel Fuel expensive? convert your tractor to electric

[jeffgreef]

Convert your tractors to electric.

Sounds extreme or even nutty at this point, but if diesel hits $5-6 everyone will be scrambling.

Some tech sectors are gearing up to do hybrid conversions of existing fleet trucks and vans. Check these links;

http://www.calcars.org/ice-conversions.html

http://altellc.com/?page_id=36

Make sure you run the demo video on the second one. This shows the basic idea- remove the internal combustion engine, replace with an electric motor. Add a smaller internal combustion engine with a generator, and add a bank of batteries. End result- for the first 50 miles a pickup operates entirely on electric, then switches to gas on the generator, running more efficiently on the gas generator (like a locomotive). Infinite range, half the fuel use.

For tractors, the generator is unnecessary if you have enough battery capacity. Battery technology is almost up to the task now, but not for the commercial tractor operator who will be in the seat for 8 hours.

The average internal combustion engine is about 17% efficient, diesel is a bit more I think. Here's a link to a new design of fuel burning engine that is supposedly 60% efficient:

http://www.geekosystem.com/shockwave-wave-disc/

If this "shock wave" engine works, it would make a generator far more efficient, in which case you could operate your electric tractor with few batteries, burning fuel in the generator most of the time, but using 1/3 to 1/4 of the fuel per hour.

The technology is not there yet, but we should keep a close eye on it. Electric is the drive of the future.

One more link- some New England hippies that converted an old Allis Chalmers G Model cultivating tractor to electric- and swear by it.

http://www.flyingbeet.com/electricg/

Maybe I should buy a Kubota L30 with seized engine on the cheap, and hold onto it until converting to electric is easily done.

No, I'm not selling anything except dreams.

JG

 

[DAY]

Interesting ideas, but just that at the moment. The cost of solar is steadily coming down, and the cost of petrofuels is steadily rising. When the lines meet we will have price parity, and clean solar will have the advantage. Government can (and is!) hastening that meeting with tax incentives.

Anyone that grew up in the 60's can remember the cost of those first Texas Instrument calculators. Microwave ovens. "portable" telephones that came in a briefcase.

"Hobby" CUTS that are used for a few hours on the weekend, then retire to the shed are prime candidates for the new alternate fuel concepts. An electric BMW was on CNBC this morning. Vrooom vrooom!

 

[jeffgreef]

Unfortunately, Day, they don't go vroom vroom, they kind of go whine whine. But, with all that torque, they take off like a shot....

 

[DAY]

I heard that in Europe electric cars are so quiet that there is a move to add a "noise" to alert pedestrians.

 

[pat32rf]

They could play a recording of a 350cid, twin exhaust.....out of their electric Fiat

 

[zzvyb6]

IC engines are about 33% efficient: 1/3 goes out the radiator, 1/3 goes out the exhaust and 1/3 goes out the crankshaft. Diesel fractions are slightly different.

Your conversion system proposal is just what the Chevy Volt does. Battery power for that fast launch and cruise, secondary generator for battery uptake. Same process as if you took an electric battery powered golf cart and threw on a 1 hp 500 watt Honda generator. The 1 hp isn't enough grunt to get you up to speed, but is perfect for maintaining the battery charge when integrated over the longer time period of use. That way you don't need a 15 hp gas motor to essentially do the same job.

 

[looknlearn]

Here's another electric tractor that is expensive but sounds interesting.
Electric Tractor

 

[DAY]

In the early 20th C there were a number of electric (battery) vehicles, the Baker Electric being the best known example.

In the early 1950's, in Philadelphia, I can remember battery powered trucks delivering kegs of beer from local breweries to local saloons. Wooden spoked wheels with solid rubber tires. I think i'll go google for some pix. . .

 

[ken4831]

In Wyoming the large coal loaders filling train cars are elec. But just think of the size of the extension cord being drug around your field to bush hog.
The trucks that were battery powered were slow and used in a city only.
And there is battery powered fork lifts seldom see out side of a building or any distance from a charger.
Now if we go back to the horse, proven history of experance feed some hay grain just be careful not to step on the exhaust products.:thumbsup:
ken

 

[Egon]

End result- for the first 50 miles a pickup operates entirely on electric, then switches to gas on the generator, running more efficiently on the gas generator (like a locomotive). Infinite range, half the fuel use.

Tractors with equipment engaged require a certain amount of HP. When the batteries run down the smaller generator ain't gona cut the mustard.

The locomotives [diesel/electric] power source is a fairly large prime mover of a design that may not be very efficient.