Unfathomable

[4570Man]

Just think how much more practical a 7 hp diesel engine would be. A 7 hp vehicle is pretty much useless though. That's half the power in a heavier vehicle than my Mule.

 

[BrokeFarmerJohn]

Just think how much more practical a 7 hp diesel engine would be. A 7 hp vehicle is pretty much useless though. That's half the power in a heavier vehicle than my Mule.

Was just a proto type showing it's possible

 

[MHarryE]

Its no coincidence e JD is introducing this at SIMA in France. 80% of France's electricity is generated by nuclear energy. French tend to accept technology more readily than other countries. It will be interesting to see how close this is to an actual feasible tractor rather than a novelty intended for a technology splash at SIMA where high tech is always on the venue.

 

[jloven]

I don't think charging times will be as bad as you think. Tesla currently does 120kW(seriously, it's awesome to behold 300A @ 400VDC straight to the pack) charging today which can take a 90kW pack from 0-75% in 45 minutes. It's all about charging in parallel and getting in the right taper zone. The pack voltage here looks like 650V which means they can charge more packs in parallel since Tesla only does 400V. I could easily see 30mins charging time(lunch break) with proper 3-phase power install.

As long as they have good cooling they should be okay in terms of longevity. Teslas are currently showing 2-3% degradation over 100kmi which is pretty great. Personally I'm showing 1% at 43k.

Fuel costs + lower maintainence are the winner here. Currently a full "tank" which gets me 270mi costs me $6 in electricity compared to the 2 gallons you get in equivalent diesel prices here. No need to haul/store fuel either which is a big benefit one of the sheep farms out in Ireland had when they went to electric all ATVs.

I'll post more thoughts later but super excited to see this happen. Electric doesn't make sense everywhere but there's certainly areas where I think it's worth considering.

Wow, 120 kW charging load!!! That would make you a commercial electric customer to the local utility company. You would be on a demand and energy rate, probably in the $10-12$ per kW range. In other words, it would cost you $1200-$1400 the first time you hooked up the charger each month and probably another $300-$500 in energy costs. Not sure where you save on fuel costs. If you used 20 gallons per day for 20 days that's about $1200 right now...Better check with your local utility before you purchase one of these vvanders....I don't think $6 per charge is even close to what it will cost. Maybe get an off peak rate but it will still be a lot more than $6. Plus they will probably make you purchase a larger transformer to service you load.

 

[vvanders]

Up here our UD starts demand metering at 100kW so if you stay under 100kW you don't have a demand charge. From there it's $4.50 kW peak, so I think the demand charges wouldn't be as large as you think.

Certainly worth considering if you have higher loads in conjunction but I don't think it'd be quite that high.

 

[2ndhalf]

Speaking of Unfathomable..

Thought you might like this...
It is some real cool... "Ironman" Tony Stark type stuff.. My boss was showing me this last week. My company has a project about to kickoff that is going to implement this... I don't get to be part of it though...

Microsoft HoloLens | Official Site

 

[Gary Fowler]

Here it is, I found one.

I would buy a NH2 new hollands hydrogen powered tractor, I personally think hydrogen is the fuel of the future and I would be the one of the first farms to run hydrogen tractors and produce my own hydrogen.



That's the future I think, that tractor is only 106hp but it's 100% free of emissions and burns a renewal fuel source

Contrary to what is hyped up about battery powered machines and especially hydrogen fueled, they are not emission free. Except for electricity produced by wind power, there is always fuel used to generate electricity. Even wind power has at some point used energy to make the turbine, tower and blades and most likely that energy was from fossil fuel. FOR SURE burning hydrogen is emission free, just water vapor produced. But how was the hydrogen produced? It used electricity to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen. Then the hydrogen had to be compressed and transported to its usage point, another use of energy expended before it can be use to power something.
Hydrogen is a total waste of energy- electricity use to convert water to Hydrogen and Oxygen then compressed and shipped somewhere to be burned and turned back into water vapor. Anytime you use energy to convert a product into a different form of energy, you loose energy in the process. Better to just use the electricity to charge a battery-less loss that way. For this reason hydrogen will never be a viable alternative fuel in most of our lifetimes.
I don't think we could put up enough wind farm generators to replace all of the fossil fuel generators in the USA. If we for some reason lost all use of fossil fuels and were able to use 100% of capacity in wind generation, a lot of us would loose a lot of amenities. We would be lucky just to have lights, cooling and heating would have to go for most of us if not all.

Ethanol production is another energy consumer that I doubt gains any thing in the process. Likely it takes as much energy OR MORE to produce a gallon than it will provide.

Technology wise, we are just not there yet for alternative energy products. Perhaps someday in the future, but not now.

 

[Redneck in training]

Contrary to what is hyped up about battery powered machines and especially hydrogen fueled, they are not emission free. Except for electricity produced by wind power, there is always fuel used to generate electricity. Even wind power has at some point used energy to make the turbine, tower and blades and most likely that energy was from fossil fuel. FOR SURE burning hydrogen is emission free, just water vapor produced. But how was the hydrogen produced? It used electricity to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen. Then the hydrogen had to be compressed and transported to its usage point, another use of energy expended before it can be use to power something.
Hydrogen is a total waste of energy- electricity use to convert water to Hydrogen and Oxygen then compressed and shipped somewhere to be burned and turned back into water vapor. Anytime you use energy to convert a product into a different form of energy, you loose energy in the process. Better to just use the electricity to charge a battery-less loss that way. For this reason hydrogen will never be a viable alternative fuel in most of our lifetimes.
I don't think we could put up enough wind farm generators to replace all of the fossil fuel generators in the USA. If we for some reason lost all use of fossil fuels and were able to use 100% of capacity in wind generation, a lot of us would loose a lot of amenities. We would be lucky just to have lights, cooling and heating would have to go for most of us if not all.

Ethanol production is another energy consumer that I doubt gains any thing in the process. Likely it takes as much energy OR MORE to produce a gallon than it will provide.

Technology wise, we are just not there yet for alternative energy products. Perhaps someday in the future, but not now.

ICE engine uses, in my estimation, about 5% of the energy that initially came from the ground. Battery powered electric motor, in this respect, beats ICE hands down. We should use hydrocarbons to make something more useful than burning it.

 

[ovrszd]

Yeah, 4 hours of work, and 24 hours of charging time. OK not too good so far. We need about a 5 to 10 fold increase in battery capacity, and we need to be able to charge them up a bunch quicker... Good start but this tractor falls short. Keep working.

When they can charge for 4 hours and work 24 hours, then we'll have something!!!

 

[ovrszd]

Contrary to what is hyped up about battery powered machines and especially hydrogen fueled, they are not emission free. Except for electricity produced by wind power, there is always fuel used to generate electricity. Even wind power has at some point used energy to make the turbine, tower and blades and most likely that energy was from fossil fuel. FOR SURE burning hydrogen is emission free, just water vapor produced. But how was the hydrogen produced? It used electricity to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen. Then the hydrogen had to be compressed and transported to its usage point, another use of energy expended before it can be use to power something.
Hydrogen is a total waste of energy- electricity use to convert water to Hydrogen and Oxygen then compressed and shipped somewhere to be burned and turned back into water vapor. Anytime you use energy to convert a product into a different form of energy, you loose energy in the process. Better to just use the electricity to charge a battery-less loss that way. For this reason hydrogen will never be a viable alternative fuel in most of our lifetimes.
I don't think we could put up enough wind farm generators to replace all of the fossil fuel generators in the USA. If we for some reason lost all use of fossil fuels and were able to use 100% of capacity in wind generation, a lot of us would loose a lot of amenities. We would be lucky just to have lights, cooling and heating would have to go for most of us if not all.

Ethanol production is another energy consumer that I doubt gains any thing in the process. Likely it takes as much energy OR MORE to produce a gallon than it will provide.

Technology wise, we are just not there yet for alternative energy products. Perhaps someday in the future, but not now.

I'm not a "greenie". When I see all these alternative methods of power I think like a "greenie" though. For example, what's the carbon footprint of a wind turbine?

In regards to future technology. I'd like to see our tax money spent sponsoring innovation into a source we haven't even dreamed of yet. I don't appreciate it being spent on things we already know isn't the answer.