Gasoline Tractors are they coming Back ?

[Paystar]

So, go buy the clear and dump/pump it in the heat oil tank.

SR

I do. All the same.

 

[Paystar]

I’ve been burning road diesel in my equipment all summer because it’s been cheaper than red. There’s only one supplier in town for red is the only reason I see for it. But I’ve never seen red diesel at $1.50 cheaper than road fuel. It’s usually 50-60 cents cheaper. If you had a farm card the difference might be a little more. But us construction guys still have to pay sales tax on red fuel.

Colored off road fuel has gone up a dollar per litre here since covid price gouging and the Ukraine war began.

Used to be 98 cents to a dollar per litre, now it's over $2.00

Hard to believe it's more than on road fuel considering there is no road tax on it.

 

[Cougsfan]

The current crop of electric CUTS are pretty lame but I expect that to change.

You are probably right, Eric, Electric CUTS will likely be the long term direction we go, but it isn't going to be in the near future because of numerous technical limitations that currently exist.

I don't think the preferred use of diesel engines in industrial and agricultural settings (tractors, ships, generators, overland trucks, locomotives, etc.) is based at all on what people mindlessly associate where a diesel engine should be used. It is far more pragmatic than a marketing perception. It is based on a century's worth of experience, of trying different things and settling on the best available engine design for a specific application. If gasoline engines were better in tractors than diesels, you would see more of them now.

 

[jjeff]

Remember reading something awhile back on the first automobiles and the three methods battling it out to power them, one company in the US devised a way to exchange dead batteries with freshly charged ones, for vehicles used for local in town / city deliveries, well over 100 yrs ago. Wonder if something like that can again be devised for farm equipment making it economically viable and practical for the owners doing the exchange themselves on there property.

 

[MossRoad]

Remember reading something awhile back on the first automobiles and the three methods battling it out to power them, one company in the US devised a way to exchange dead batteries with freshly charged ones, for vehicles used for local in town / city deliveries, well over 100 yrs ago. Wonder if something like that can again be devised for farm equipment making it economically viable and practical for the owners doing the exchange themselves on there property.

At my last job, we had electric forklifts, electric skid movers, pallet wrappers, load lifters, etc. The batteries were incredibly heavy and very expensive. We had a special lift to remove them for servicing. I cannot imagine how expensive a 2nd battery would be for a farm tractor, nor having to drive all the way back from an interrupted day of plowing, seeding, harvesting, etc. just to change out a battery pack, then back out to the fields.

To bring a battery pack out to a field for exchange would require a really capable off-road truck/crane-type of arrangement that could cope with the weight of the battery, soft soils, cantilevered weights, outriggers, etc..

They have a similar type of servicing vehicle today. They call it a fuel truck.

I think a lot if not most home owners could get by well with an electric machine. But production farming with hundreds/thousands of acres would be pretty expensive I'd suspect.

 

[Agvg]

Don't think anybody is believing that a tractor running 24/7 is a suitable candidate to run on batteries, but a lot of tractors are used in the farmyard etc where they run a few hours a day and plenty time to charge.

 

[Agvg]

Ore some believe the future is not big tractors but swarms of very light and autonomous units do the farmework.

 

[Paystar]

Where I am, I only have one radio station I can get, so against my better judgement I sometimes turn off the Sirius XM (The Rural Channel/RFD is my favorite) and I turn on the CBC (Communist Broadcasting Channel...or wait....maybe one of the C's is Canada?) to see what is going on in local news.

There was a program on with all the new brainwaves talking about how they are going to lower the carbon footprint of freighters and cargo ships out on the lakes and oceans. Obviously I couldn't listen but had to wonder......what is their dream there? Electric ships or are we just going to go back to sail boats?

 

[eagle628]

There was a program on with all the new brainwaves talking about how they are going to lower the carbon footprint of freighters and cargo ships out on the lakes and oceans. Obviously I couldn't listen but had to wonder......what is their dream there? Electric ships or are we just going to go back to sail boats?

No, it's LNG and methanol instead of bunker fuel.

 

[Hay Dude]

No, it's LNG and methanol instead of bunker fuel.

That means fracking, right?