New Tractor Company as if we didn't have enough

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   / New Tractor Company as if we didn't have enough #51  
I don't think EVs are the final solution...its a step to the next thing...whatever that turns out to be. Current battery tech is too limiting. There's not enough grid power to take everything electric, here in California building new power stations is almost impossible. batteries, solar panels, etc use significant amounts of high quality rare earth elements, which there isn't a lot of, relatively speaking. Battery tech needs to leap forward in terms of capacity. They need to figure out the logistics of disposing of mass quantities of spent batteries, and a number of other things....hopefully before they need to, but knowing the government that will be the next crisis because they sat on there hands instead of getting in front of the ball. today its really hard to beat the energy of what you get out of a gallon of gas or diesel, but we'll get there someday.

quite possibly I'm wrong and they'll make a major breakthrough with batteries and EVs are it, but today I don't see EVs being it.


We need to do something. We'll see what they come up with.
 
   / New Tractor Company as if we didn't have enough #52  
"Easily swapped battery packs". I wonder - how much is a battery pack going to weigh on a tractor this size. I worked for a company that had electric fork lifts. Believe me - the batteries were VERY heavy - 2000#+ and were not easily swapped.

That forklift probably had lead-acid batteries which are heavy as hell. Tesla model S has 7,104 18650 battery cells in its battery pack. Each battery cell weights about 45 g, so 320 KG just for the batteries. Add the framing, electronics and wires, it's 540 KG. Mind you, I doubt the tractor battery pack will be as big as a Tesla S battery pack.
 
   / New Tractor Company as if we didn't have enough #53  
I think you are looking at the future for commercial operations. Batteries will get better, robotics will get better. Tractors will start not even resembling what we know of as a tractor. Only us old retired fellows that use tractors as a practical, useful toy will have real tractors. I predict that robotic tractors will come specialized for a specific purpose. As an example, I could see one using multiple tiny robot tractors to weed tomatoes, and different maybe larger one to pick the tomatoes.
Perhaps this forum will someday be taken over by the nerds of the world!o_O
 
   / New Tractor Company as if we didn't have enough #54  
I haven't read the whole thread, due to time issues, but I thought I'd add that we have a Nissan Leaf which we use for our "local" suburban driving- anything less than about 50 miles round trip. It seems ideal for such travel. We also have a solar pv system mounted on our little barn, a whooping 13 panels, but with our modest needs, it's enough to keep our average electric bill to about $15, and to keep the Leaf charged using our home 250V charging system. It wouldn't do for a family of 4 with high consumption needs, but it shows what can be accomplished with a bit of effort. I have two well-off brothers, who have had, and can easily afford, virtually any vehicle they want, yet both now drive top of the line Teslas, and are very happy with them. I expect battery technology to improve, and with government investment in charging stations, we could be on our merry way. You have to keep in mind our petroleum fuel industry has been heavily subsidized via government write-offs, subsidies, tax credits depletion allowances, etc. But I plan to keep my Miata for fun.
 
   / New Tractor Company as if we didn't have enough #55  
My point was..... Most of us fuel up before we go out. If its getting low we refuel. That would also be the point on batteries.
Some tractors (or diesels) just dont start back up after running out.

Just plan ahead...

And why not recharge it while having lunch? Won't give full charge but usually Lithium Ion batteries charges fast to 80% then slow down considerably to avoid damaging the batteries. Could easily get a full day of work that way with the same battery pack.
 
   / New Tractor Company as if we didn't have enough #56  
Yup, I only said they're "not ready yet."

I'm sure it will happen. Probably not in my lifetime either. Such is the way of things.

But I do get tired of the BS illusion that "somehow" going electric is "cleaner". That's BS for now. We have to go nuclear power first, and the bunny huggers and tree whisperers would lose their pea brain little minds over that. Plugging in an "electric" anything now just moves the location of the pollution source. A hollow "feels good" movement. Right now, since the tree whisperer doesn't SEE the pollution, they think they're saving the world. But that COAL fired power plant, and that 3rd world country with the strip mine (for batteries), and that toxic waste dump (for the expired batteries) are all FAR ENOUGH AWAY from the tree whisperer when they plug in their little electric "whatever" that they can conveniently stay in denial about what they're actually doing to the earth.

Far more poisonous than my diesel powered tractor.

Maybe someday it will be viable and actually "clean", but that will be many decades down the road.
Whenever.......WHENEVER, someone in an attempt to make their point does this: "bunny huggers and tree whisperers would lose their pea brain little minds". I usually stop reading and just disregard
 
   / New Tractor Company as if we didn't have enough #57  
A front loader or backhoe weighs just as much, and it can be easily swapped on and off the tractor. Swapping batteries doesn't seem to me like it would require too much "advanced" engineering.
 
   / New Tractor Company as if we didn't have enough #58  
I believe this has a lot less to do with pollution than it has to do with government control. Right now it is impossible to lock people down and keep them essentially imprisoned in their homes. They found this out with the recent scamdenic. If all the major population centers (cities) were 100% electric as is the goal there is little or nothing you could do to leave them or even survive a deep freeze with the power being off. In the hotter climates the suffering could be almost as bad with heat waves. Electric power can be controlled very selectively vs. municipal gas or individual oil deliveries and when the switch is thrown the power is off unlike a full tank of oil or propane...
 
   / New Tractor Company as if we didn't have enough #59  
EXACTLY. Very well stated. Like me, I keep at least 500 gallons of diesel on hand all the time and my backup power generation is also diesel powered.

All a utility has to do is throw a switch and you are screwed. No juice and your life ceases as you know it.

No heat, no water, no charging the tractor or the Tesla for that matter.

I know, you have this huge solar array out back that powers everything so you can run 'off grid'..

All well and good problem is those panels were probably made in China and creating them produced a lot more pollution that they will ever produce in electricity.

People today, tend to look past the real issues and just at the end game, so long as that end game makes them 'feel good'

The day I spend 30 or 50 or 100 grand for an electric tractor is the day I sell the farm.
 
   / New Tractor Company as if we didn't have enough #60  
@Slowpoke Slim I actually have to agree with you. What is the world coming to? lol

Electric vehicles are much less environmentally friendly now than people think. It's coming, although the cost of entry is not nearly as simple and clean as most people think. I do love the torque of electric motors, so when the technology is mature it will be hard to beat.

By the way, I bought an EA grapple in Jan and got it last month. Thrilled with it. I did warn you at the time I might have been pulling your chain for the sake of argument. It seemed funny at the time. :cool:
 
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