Tractor News Viable Electric Tractor?

[crazyal]

Sorry its not preprocessed, chewed, and digested for you. You have to do some searching and math. It will be good for you.

Start at EPA.gov. Look up pollution of coal-fired electric production. There you will find data on emissions per kWh of power generated. They also have sections on thermal efficiency of power generation.

At fueleconomy.gov the EPA lists emissions and energy consumption for vehicles. You will find Tesla Model 3 Long Range consumes 26 kWh per 100 miles.

Then go find diesel and gasoline vehicles to compare against. From the above you know how much emissions per kWh come from coal electricity. With a 9th grade education you should be able to convert that into grams per mile for the Tesla to directly look up against any other vehicle at fueleconomy.gov.

A gallon of gasoline contains 33.7 kWh of heat. The Tesla goes 100 miles on 26 kWh,
100 miles * 33.7 kWh / 26 kWh= 130 MPGe.

Now lets say the Tesla is 100% efficient (it is not). Then an automobile of the same mass getting 30 MPG is 30/130 = 23% efficient as a Tesla.

If a Tesla is 80% efficient then 30 / (130 * 0.80) = 29%

I read that a Tesla is about 63% efficient just the other day.

 

[crazyal]

The problem is always going to be the same. How long the charge will last and how fast to recharge it. 3 hours would work most of the time for me but when it doesn't then what? I have no clue what I would do if I was skidding trees and it died in the woods or in the middle of blowing snow when we just got 2' of heavy wet stuff? That means I would never risk it like I do now with diesel. But with diesel I can drive to the garage and fill it up in minutes. After 2 hours or so of use how long would you have to wait for the battery to charge before you could use the tractor again? What if the power goes out during that big snow storm? To charge fast you either need high voltage or lots of current. Each time you cut the charging time in half you double the size of the wire needed. Maybe some day but I don't see it happening that fast.

You would think by now most riding mowers would be battery powered. My neighbor has an old GE battery powered rider. Works nice and there's little to it. No belts and 3 car batteries. Each blade is direct drive from it's own motor. I've seen a few but I question just how accurate the real world performance is. Cub C has one that will do an hour and a half but I'm guessing more like an hour. They all seam to come with smaller decks so it's going to take longer to cut. Only CC uses a lithium ion battery (not sure if it matters) but the cost of a replacement battery (56v 60ah in the case of the CC) can't be cheap. If you can mow your yard in 45 minutes and still have a 1/3 of the charge left it should last for some time. But if you need the whole charge you are going to be replacing it much sooner.

 

[4570Man]

My machine doesn’t often work for more than 3-4 hours at a time but it doesn’t get brought back home to charge everyday.

 

[caver]

My neighbor has an old GE battery powered rider.

In my teens my friends dad bought one used in probably the late 70's. Looking at online photos on the interwebs I believe it was also a GE. I remember it being yellow and it had the deck out front. His dad was a crackerjack mechanic so I always wondered why he bought an electric one.

 

[edgarrian]

Not a fan of this at all. Thats a steep increase in price to get something like this. 4 hours run time under load? or just running? Can you mow a good sized yard with that. I can tell you when I have my mower deck hooked up and my pto driven leaf vac hooked up. It sucks down the fuel. So i can only imagine what this would do to a electric tractor. I can see getting a EV for work. But not tractor use. Its not even remotely worth the extra coin for it. Now if you are talking 12k. Then more people would be on board.

 

[groundcover]

They are coming a long way fast but with a price to go with it , 15 acres pretty impressive.
Greenworks GZ6R Zero Turn Mower 82V Lithium Ion - SLE Equipment

 

[Grumpycat]

They are coming a long way fast but with a price to go with it , 15 acres pretty impressive.
Greenworks GZ6�R Zero Turn Mower 82V Lithium Ion - SLE Equipment

Saw one of those a couple years ago at a dealer show before product was shipping. Representative said the goal was real-world commercial 7 hours of mowing as might be the real full day of a lawn service who might charge a premium for "clean" quiet cut. Might also appeal to businesses, golf courses, and certain school systems.

Uses a standard J1772 EVSE, that is good. I think they are making a big mistake in listing the battery as 82V. Demonstrating their ignorance of electricity. Voltage makes less difference than RPM of an engine. The critical parameter is kWh and if you don稚 know what kWh is then I claim you only think you know what voltage is.

Hydrostatic "pump" service kits are about $100 every 400 hours. Allow $200 total including labor. If you run the mower 800 hours and consume only 1 gallon per hour of $3.00 gasoline then $2800 in expenses the electric does not incur. Ignoring cost of engine oil and filters, ignoring cost of electricity. The electric is about $15,000 more than comparable gas ZTR but ignoring cost of money may break even in 5 years. For business this is close enough to be an avenue one needs to explore without putting all eggs in one basket.

Is economically awful for one who mow a couple hours per week 7 months per year.

 

[Jim Nelson]

All this talk about $10,000 solar panels and you're good to go is a stretch. We have a 3.6 P.V. system that was $16000,solar water heater that I don't remember the cost off and all our landscape lights are solar.I am not against solar but in all honesty we did this in self defense rather than to save the earth.The first year with the P.V. system the power co. owed us $9.00,broke even, the next year we owed $127,the next 2 years were both over $200 and last year was over $500. This year, so far, and we are only 8 months in to the billing year, it's $429.

We do live in Ca. so we take a beating at every turn but it's also about the best location for solar production until you realize that between the govt. and utility co. it doesn't pencil out.

I'm keeping my Dodge diesel and Kubota tractor and you can have my share of the pie in the sky.

 

[4570Man]

I'm keeping my Dodge diesel and Kubota tractor and you can have my share of the pie in the sky.

As far as I’m concerned a clean running Kubota diesel is lower emissions than the so called greenie crap. If you’re comparing one of the greenie ruined diesels vs the battery junk I’d feel fairly certain it’s the better option.

 

[Grumpycat]

All this talk about $10,000 solar panels and you're good to go is a stretch. We have a 3.6 P.V. system that was $16000,solar water heater that I don't remember the cost off and all our landscape lights are solar.I am not against solar but in all honesty we did this in self defense rather than to save the earth.The first year with the P.V. system the power co. owed us $9.00,broke even, the next year we owed $127,the next 2 years were both over $200 and last year was over $500. This year, so far, and we are only 8 months in to the billing year, it's $429.

We do live in Ca. so we take a beating at every turn but it's also about the best location for solar production until you realize that between the govt. and utility co. it doesn't pencil out.

I'm keeping my Dodge diesel and Kubota tractor and you can have my share of the pie in the sky.

I don’t know what a "3.6 P.V. system" is. $10,000 buys a 6kW system before government subsidies or cost of installation.