Tractor News Viable Electric Tractor?

[Doc G]

Not quite certain myself. I live in an environment of licensed electricians and degreed engineers. We can't agree on the viability in either physical or financial aspects...

Similar environment here. "Knowing" (about electricity, batteries, etc.) is probably not the stumbling block for electric vehicle or electric tractor adoption.

IMHO, there's another dynamic at work: While @PuffyC fears electric tractors won't get here fast enough I suspect many other people fear they will one day be forced to change, rather than retaining freedom to choose.

I suspect many folks would be more welcoming to the electric tractor movement if they could be assured governments will not pick winners and regulate or tax diesels out of existence (or affordability).

Whether this fear is well grounded we can debate. But, eventually, electric tractors will offer a viable alternative from a function and cost perspective, at least in the CUT/SCUT sizes most of us use. As that happens: will diesels also remain a viable alternative in the future from a regulatory/tax perspective? After growing up learning about diesel tractors with me, will my 10 year-old son still have freedom to choose in the future? Hmmm....

 

[bearthebruce]

I'd love to have an electric tractor and an electric truck as well. Taking your place off the grid with solar anyway? Now you can run your tractor and truck for free (sorta). War in the middle east? SHTF? Who cares. When it comes to tractors you want torque and an electric drivetrain is far superior in that regard, plus maintenance is far less, there's no need to store or handle toxic chemicals, and the added weight way down low actually becomes an advantage. In 20 years you won't be able to buy a gas/diesel tractor and with fast chargers the electrics will be able to run 24x7 with less downtime than it takes to fuel a diesel. My only fear is it won't get here fast enough for me to afford one.

Let's work backwards: You said, "with fast chargers, the electrics will be able to run 24x7 with less downtime than it take to fuel a diesel." How does one dump 75 to 150 kilowatts into a battery pack in less then five or ten minutes? What power source is on your farm that can do that?

You'd need a 3 phase supply, you'd need an ev that has the DC fast charge where you can connect direct into the batteries, and to dump that kind of power in short time, you are going to need a significant cooling system operating.

Maintenance is far less? Still to be seen. Telsa, the most successful of the car companies, certainly do a fair amount of maintenance checking the battery stack and the like.

We are watching the EV VW stuff very closely because we do diagnostic tools for VAG cars. Their newest entry, the ID.4 was just picked up at the office last week. VAG told that the car had a range of 250 miles on a charge. Reality - maybe 190 unless one is willing to drive much slower than the flow of traffic. VAG says fast charging can be done from 20% to 80% on a fast charger in 35 minutes. We are testing that tonight. A full charge on 120v house current - dumping 80Kwatthours into the battery - takes north of 10 hours. Overnight charge... On their 240volt charger, we expect it to need less than half.... but we don't know for sure until we get the charger.

EVs will have their place. Not sure they will replace all tractors - maybe some day.

(On the Electric truck - Tesla has a design... VAG is working on one.)

 

[PuffyC]

Let's work backwards: You said, "with fast chargers, the electrics will be able to run 24x7 with less downtime than it take to fuel a diesel." How does one dump 75 to 150 kilowatts into a battery pack in less then five or ten minutes? What power source is on your farm that can do that?

You'd need a 3 phase supply, you'd need an ev that has the DC fast charge where you can connect direct into the batteries, and to dump that kind of power in short time, you are going to need a significant cooling system operating.

Maintenance is far less? Still to be seen. Telsa, the most successful of the car companies, certainly do a fair amount of maintenance checking the battery stack and the like.

We are watching the EV VW stuff very closely because we do diagnostic tools for VAG cars. Their newest entry, the ID.4 was just picked up at the office last week. VAG told that the car had a range of 250 miles on a charge. Reality - maybe 190 unless one is willing to drive much slower than the flow of traffic. VAG says fast charging can be done from 20% to 80% on a fast charger in 35 minutes. We are testing that tonight. A full charge on 120v house current - dumping 80Kwatthours into the battery - takes north of 10 hours. Overnight charge... On their 240volt charger, we expect it to need less than half.... but we don't know for sure until we get the charger.

EVs will have their place. Not sure they will replace all tractors - maybe some day.

(On the Electric truck - Tesla has a design... VAG is working on one.)

I actually said "In 20 years you won't be able to buy a gas/diesel tractor and with fast chargers the electrics will be able to run 24x7 with less downtime than it takes to fuel a diesel". Today? No, that's not possible. However, even today you're seeing some claim 80% recharge in 30 minutes so it we're not that far off, and that's with packs and motors pumping out hundreds of HP.

You go back just 15 years ago and Tesla didn't even exist - today EVs are commonplace. It's accelerating more each day too. Ford plans to phase out all IC powered passenger cars within 10 years, with 2/3s of their commercial vehicles being battery powered within the same timeframe. Other manufacturers are doing the same. And yeah it's California but they already have plans to ban new gas powered cars in less than 15 years. You start projecting forward a solid 20 years, add in politics and the environmental changes we're going to see no matter what, and it's not hard to foresee a world in 2041 where even finding diesel begins to get problematic, let alone trying to buy a new vehicle or tractor that burns it.

 

[Jchonline]

Once we get the infrastructure to support most road vehicles in electric versions, perhaps construction equipment will start to follow.

EVs are not common. They are uncommon. I believe in 2019 the total percentage was still under 2%, not sure if you have newer stats to share.

The only reason car manufacturers are jumping on the EV bandwagon is sales. They see a new market and they want it. Ford: ”You mean if I create an electric version of this car people will buy it?” Sign me up!
It really doesnt have much to do with Ford or anyone else (but Tesla) wanting to save the environment.

Until we have the infrastructure it is all a mute point for major adoption. Anyone that gets an EV these days is compromising vs a gas/diesel version. Hopefully that wont be the case in the coming decades, but it is now.

 

[bearthebruce]

China is leading the world in EV adoption. At least 10%, and it may be higher, of the car sold in China are all EV with many more being Hybrids. They have taken their air pollution problems in the big cities to heart and have set their car manufacturers to making more EV available. Their tax structure penalizes ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) vehicles.

My last trip to China in 2018 - Beijing and Shang Hai had really improved their air quality. My first trip in 2010 - i did not want to breath the air. It was bad!

I actually said "In 20 years you won't be able to buy a gas/diesel tractor and with fast chargers the electrics will be able to run 24x7 with less downtime than it takes to fuel a diesel".

Apology PuffyC. I should read more completely. Still, I don't see the infrastructure coming to rural farm locations to quick charge. I think another technology will have to be rolled out to do this. Maybe your comments about solar and wind would see a big battery storage on site which could then dump big power into the machines. I see lots of problems, mostly economic. We would not be storing gas or diesel, we would be storing energy in batteries. Lithium is not that stable..

The only reason car manufacturers are jumping on the EV bandwagon is sales. They see a new market and they want it. Ford: ”You mean if I create an electric version of this car people will buy it?” Sign me up!

I don't agree. The manufacturers are throwing their hands in the air because government environmental action and people at large are demanding "clean" running cars. The car manufacturers have given up spending hugely on trying to find ways to make an ICE pollution free.

The problem I see with this big switch is that energy has to be generated and that infrastructure has to be created to deliver this energy. Wind and Solar? Unless there is some quantum leap in technology, we can't get enough electric power from these. Sure, I know, 20 years ago it was a dream and now there are lots of wind and solar fields generating power. But how many generating stations have gone off line owing to these?

Let's go wild and crazy - try to get or heads around that which we are talking about. There are 350 million cars operating in the US. Over the next 20 years, let's assume they all switch to EV. Let's also assume that the average use is 15,000 miles a year and that the vehicles use 2kw per mile on average (facts which I can support with current technology). Each car would require 30 Megawatts per year. To operate just the car fleet, we would need 1.05 Quadrillion watts of power (1.05 Million Megawatts). Even if we divide that number by 365 days, we still need 2.8 Trillion watts of power per day just to run cars. That's no farm machines... no trucks... no trains.

Can we generate such power? And can we do it without burning fossil fuels? Most of our power still comes from gas, oil, and coil. Nukes are out. So, where do we get such massive production of power?

We are running head long into this EV technology and as an electrical engineer, I get the advantages. We have much to solve before we see adoption of EV totally replacing the ICE although most of the car manufacturers are moving with the governmental push to electrify. The ICE is going to be replaced. I'm just not sure we can afford the replacement we are now pursuing.

 

[PuffyC]

The problem I see with this big switch is that energy has to be generated and that infrastructure has to be created to deliver this energy

That's a great point, and I wonder if we might see even more of a move towards onsite generation as a result. Based on the numbers I've looked at for full, non-grid tied solar installs, the break even point for the typical home is around 20 years - just shy of the estimated 25 year lifespan of the panels and probably the battery packs as well. You add in the power demands of electric vehicles and over that 25 year life it's probably a wash, but even then, not only do I not need to pull that energy from the grid, but everything I used to pull is now available to redistribute elsewhere, all for the same cost. If or when going solar becomes significantly cheaper, I can see that someday becoming the default for homes if for no other reason than because it saves you money. Of course the question of where we get all those panels is it's own issue, but even if homeowners went grid-tied to partially offset just some of their energy needs, that's all energy that no longer has to come from a plant somewhere. It's hard to say where all this will go, but you project a scenario like that out 20-40 years and it's possible we would actually need less infrastructure to support it, not more.

 

[ericm979]

In the future we'll get a lot of the power for electric vehicles from solar. At this point solar power is cheaper than fossil fuel power (and before you say "but subsidy" remember that the fossil fuel industry is heavily subsidized, from extraction to refinement). While solar isn't emissions-free it's a lot lower emissions than fossil fuels. And unlike fossil fuels solar power will continue to get cheaper.

My wife's thinking of getting an electric car. We don't use her car for long trips as it's the oldest in our fleet. It's just used to run into town. We take the truck or my car for trips. An electric would work just fine for her use and would not change our lifestyle at all. Most of the people I know with electric cars use them similarly. But since local trips make up the majority of miles and emissions, just replacing those with electric car trips will have a huge impact on emissions, and will save people money.

An electric tractor would work well for my usage which is rarely more than 4 hours a day and is on my property where there's power available. I think most people here are in a similar situation. While CUT emissions are pretty small in the overall scheme of things I would like to see a competitively priced electric CUT in the market.

OTOH I think it will be a long time before electrics can replace all ICE vehicles and power generation. There will be a long tail of fossil fuel usage for vehicles and power plants where electric/solar can't be made to work. Which is ok from an environmental standpoint- we don't need to replace all fossil fuel usage in order to see the benefits from reduced emissions.

Personally I really like engines. I have not driven an EV yet but the idea just doesn't excite me. I'm going to buy another fun car or two and enjoy them while I can.

 

[bearthebruce]

My wife's thinking of getting an electric car. We don't use her car for long trips as it's the oldest in our fleet. It's just used to run into town. We take the truck or my car for trips. An electric would work just fine for her use and would not change our lifestyle at all. Most of the people I know with electric cars use them similarly. But since local trips make up the majority of miles and emissions, just replacing those with electric car trips will have a huge impact on emissions, and will save people money.

Perfect use for today's EVs.. long trips for retired people willing to sit at a charging station for 40 minutes - maybe... But if on a schedule, it doesn't make a lot of sense to stop every 200 miles or so for a charge that takes 40 minutes.

An electric tractor would work well for my usage which is rarely more than 4 hours a day and is on my property where there's power available. I think most people here are in a similar situation. While CUT emissions are pretty small in the overall scheme of things I would like to see a competitively priced electric CUT in the market.

For your use, an electric machine would make sense. When I have to mow 15 acres and am only on site for a few days, it would likely not make sense for our use. Our trail work and all that, EVtrac would serve. We have talked about getting an electric UTV to get around.. for that EV is the perfect solution especially when we are going out to hunt.. we want to be vewy vewy qwiet 'cause we're huntin' wabbits!

Personally I really like engines. I have not driven an EV yet but the idea just doesn't excite me. I'm going to buy another fun car or two and enjoy them while I can.

Some of them are a real blast. Some of the high end manufacturers do not want to loose their clients as they change to electric (read that Audi). The acceleration of electric motors can be way more impressive than an ICE. The electric motor has huge torque at low speed allowing the jump off the line to be impressive. As the motor spins up to high revs, then it looses its torque making really fast an issue. Given most ICE performance cars have a speed limiter, the electrics will compete quite nicely up to the limit (150mph if memory serves). It's beyond the limit that will be the issue.

Another issue for the EV is lugging all those batteries with it! The ICE based vehicle has a lot less weight than the battery based vehicle.

EVs are around and available at dealers now. Give one a try. You may be surprised.

 

[crashz]

I'm becoming a bit of a convert here. While an EV will not currently work for me, one in particular caught my eye yesterday. The Jeep Magneto. That looks very cool. For those who don't look it up, its basically a Jeep Rubicon with an electric motor under the hood. All the goodies are still there, solid axles, two speed transfer case and six speed stick shift.

I would line up to buy that. Of course it would only be a toy. But very fun.

I see the arguments on both sides. All have some valid points and some ridiculous horse crap. But change happens. We need to deal with it.

 

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