Just a few thoughts from someone who actually has experience with EVs... Five so far (2 plug-in hybrid, 3 fully electric). I would really like an electric tractor for my own use, mainly because mine is noisy as hell and I just finished rebuilding the engine! There are definitely use cases where electric tractors make a lot of sense, while there are others where it's a terrible idea. There's a lot of myths on electrification from both sides of the issue, so I wanted to drop by with my engineer mindset and personal experience to correct a few...
Some arguments for electrifying tractors:
1)
Lower maintenance costs. There's simply far fewer moving parts. Engines have pistons, connecting rods, crankshafts, camshafts, lifters, pushrods, valves, carbs/fuel injectors, fuel and oil systems. And then there's transmissions, differentials, etc to get power to the wheels. And then there's shafts, gears, belts, etc getting power to where it's finally used. All of those parts wear, most of them require lubrication, and the vibration of an engine causes wear over time as well.
2) The additional
weight of batteries can be very helpful for tractors, especially if it's done in such a way that at least some of the extra weight can be useful for balance as well. For example, if you're using a front end loader, where you're normally going to have some weight added to the rear of the tractor, instead of a weight bucket, make a 3-point aux battery pack instead. That would also largely ameliorate any charging difficulties - When the aux battery is depleted, drop it and pick up a freshly charged one.
3) Electrifying attachments as close to the point the power is needed can result in far
lower mechanical losses in addition to lower maintenance costs mentioned above. FWIW, I believe that a successful electric tractor still needs a standard mechanical PTO, hydraulic system, etc to retain compatibility with existing mechanically driven attachments.
Some arguments against:
A) Tractors run at a relatively constant power load for long periods of time and will gain little to no efficiency from regenerative braking the way cars do, because cars are always stopping and starting.
B) Access to charging might be more difficult - This is a spot where the use cases are important.
Some things that should be done to make electrified tractors successful:
I) Battery life must be excellent. To achieve this, a good Battery Management System with liquid temperature control is important.
II) User interface must be designed to give proper warnings when battery level is getting low so that the machine can be driven to a spot where the battery can be swapped and/or charged. It should also have good power consumption meters so that the user can plan ahead.
III) The industry must use existing EV standards, and learn from the automotive industry, or they're going to have a rough go of it.
Use cases where electrification makes sense:
a) Home users who aren't using the machine every day and may even have long pauses in between uses. No use letting an engine rust. These users also would generally have the lowest demand for runtime. I'm in this group.
b) Farm use where there is daily downtime that can be used for charging, but enough daily use that a faster charging station and/or additional batteries (like the 3-point battery pack mentioned above, or a forklift-style battery swapping machine) are a worthwhile investment to take advantage of some of the other advantages of electrification
Use cases where electrification does not make sense: Any operation that needs 24/7 runtime (like giant farms using "combine cowboys" for 24-hour harvests) or is geographically large enough that they transport equipment on a semi trailer to the point of use. These *could* be done, but would require additional investment in large mobile batteries and/or battery swap stations and/or charging equipment. It could be done, but if it is it should be the last thing that gets done.
On to some replies:
I remember 40 ? Years ago GE had an electric garden tractor size lawnmower. It must have been battery powered, idk and it didn't matter to me. It was just as stupid to me as a little kid as I think it is today.
I know a guy who has one, and loves it. It's actually a pretty good design. I don't think it sold particularly well or for particularly long, and I think only a few thousand were built but even today they have quite a following and a lot of them are still in use.
It would be something if the battery would even last 10 years
I don't know how long it takes to charge but say you get farmers
in the same area with 20 tractors what will happen to the electric
company will the power lines still be up???
EV's are really a JOKE! They cost more than a gas car and the
electric IHMO is not that much cheaper driving than a gas and
the emissions are not less because of what is used to produce
the power the ev. Compare the cost of the ev + hookup etc and
then a gas car in the long run I can't see how an ev is better and
with an ev you are restricts to where you can go!
The battery on my car is supposed to go 750,000 miles before it gets down to 80% of original capacity. I'll probably be dead by then. Batteries simply don't need to be changed out like that if they're properly designed using the correct materials and modern BMS.
The "grid won't support it" thing is largely BS. The grid supports a lot more than we use most of the day, because the grid has to support the large amount of power used in the evening (google "duck curve" for more info). Late at night and for a good chunk of the day, there's a lot of power available that isn't being used - That's why power companies have time-of-use plans to encourage users to flatten their duck curve.
Electric cars are now right about at the point where the cost to make them is on par with the cost of a gas car. In terms of operating them, your "humble opinion" on fueling costs doesn't match the facts - My wife's (gas) car costs 5-7 times as much in fuel per mile compared to my (electric) car's power usage. Emissions *are* less even though they're at the power company, even if the power company is 100% coal, because the power company's processes are more efficient than an internal combustion engine which is only 25-30% efficient. In addition, as the grid gets cleaner, all of the electric vehicles that fuel from it also get cleaner, whereas gas cars are the cleanest on the day you buy them and will never improve.
The "EV hookup" is not very expensive. My mother drives an EV and uses a charger she got with the car (free) and plugs it into a standard wall outlet. I use a level 2 charger that costs about $400-500. It's long since paid for itself. With the Tesla Supercharger network, I'm really not restricted in where I can go, and with the other manufacturers mostly having signed on to the NACS coalition now, this should be a complete non-issue for anyone in about 3 years.
And I've gotta say, I *LOVE* EV driving. That was a big surprise to me - I kinda got the first one just for the hell of it, but I quickly got hooked. It's smooth and quiet. I leave the house with a full "tank" every day. I never have to stop to fuel up unless I'm on a road trip. I never have to stand outside in the heat of summer or the cold of winter while fueling. The performance is fantastic. It's FUN! The environmental benefits or lack thereof don't even matter to me - I'll never go back to internal combustion. I've electrified everything except my tractor, my wife's car, and my airplane (which is a whole different can of worms).
Hope this is interesting to at least some of you.
