Would you buy an electric tractor?

[5030]

"When I get around to actually buying the tractor, those two things are going to be at the top of my list to avoid, or learn to live with."

I don't live with it and don't ever plan to. Why both my large frame Kubota's are Pre-4 engines and are increasing in value as people come to the realization that computer controlled junk is just that. Lowest bidder junk. That includes electric cars and electric tractors.

I got into drones a while back (Thanks Richard) and bought a fairly high buck one. Interestingly, I found out that every drone maker uses the same components, they just package them differently and change the software parameters. Same applies to tractors, or cars or airplanes or whatever. Just so many producers of components and everyone uses the same components and most users want them as cheap as possible.

 

[5030]

Kubota electric. Drive it while sitting in your recliner in house. No cab needed.

View attachment 670576

I can see that fitting up a field.................not.

 

[strantor]

Kubota electric. Drive it while sitting in your recliner in house. No cab needed.

View attachment 670576

That was in the movie "Interstellar." Autonomous tractors that go out and just do all the work by themselves. Seems actually feasible.

 

[Rock Crawler]

I see a couple challenges.

Look at your tractor, no matter the brand or size... There is no unnecessary body room, so that leaves you the engine compartment and transmission gear box area along with the enclosed hydraulic area.

So your limited on space, but lets assume that we dump out all of the mechanical bits and replace that pile of stuff with brushless motors at each wheel and at each implement joint (loader arms, bucket pivots, 3-point arms, backhoe joints...) and take all remaining voided area and fill with graphene cells. Awesome, we can now power it up and move it. Can we store electric in quantity to now go out and stress/work all of these motors past the intended design parameters for 16 hours? Farmers do this, they make the equipment get the work done, daybreak to nightfall. They push equipment at times and ask it to punch outside of it's weight class.

I see the hard part being that you need to deliver massive amounts of amperage over long hours to do very difficult, resistive high load work. Tractors by design do stupidly hard work, and create an amazing amount of tractive force non stop for hours and hours, day after day and decade after decade.

Will 3-D graphene deliver the density of electricity that we need for this kind of task?

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Gale, you have electric on the brain. This thread is about tractors, not 4 wheel toasters. Keep on subject.

Electric anything today is mainly about batteries as was pointed out in Tesla' battery day yesterday. If you had quoted the post I was replying to you would have known I was on subject. What did you think about Kubota's 4 track toaster coming on line to replace diesels in the coming decades?

EV farm tractors and Over the Road tractors put more demands on batteries. I do not think using iron vs lithium based batteries would be enough weight to make the tracks fall off of that Kubota EV.

India is making progress on replacing lithium with steel for EV batteries.

The 'World's First Iron-Ion Battery' Now Exists, Though It Needs More Development - My TechDecisions

China is an EV battery focused country and the Tesla Model 3 is using a local source that also use steel in their lithium EV batteries. Per the article below these batteries adds 220 pounds of weight to a Model 3 which is not a positive weight wise but is positive cost wise. One can see as companies like Kubota moves from diesel in the coming decades the lower costs but heavier iron based EV batteries could be all pluses in a tractor. The batteries of the future have not even been engineered as of today so we do not know what the future holds but we know diesel is heading for the exit year by year.

Tesla gets Chinese approval to use lithium-iron batteries in the Model 3 - Roadshow

 

[Mat4644]

Looking at home electrical infrastructure needed and current technology costs it's not going to happen in many of our lifetimes. Tesla survives because it's a desirable novelty car for many. Propped up with government incentives and stock speculators. Very doubtful without speculation to be a viable longterm company. People with tractors overall tend to look at the more practical side of ownership.

 

[/pine]

... Same applies to tractors, or cars or airplanes or whatever. Just so many producers of components and everyone uses the same components and most users want them as cheap as possible. ...

LoL...Hardly...Are you really not familiar with knock offs or clones??...the Chinese are very good at it...

The "components" mentioned are hardly all "the same"...electronics are like pizza pies...the better the ingredients the better the pie...same goes for electronics....the same component design can be made with high quality parts or cheap knock offs and everything in between...

Even proprietary components can be boot legged...

 

[paulfun9]

LoL...Hardly...Are you really not familiar with knock offs or clones??...the Chinese are very good at it...

The "components" mentioned are hardly all "the same"...electronics are like pizza pies...the better the ingredients the better the pie...same goes for electronics....the same component design can be made with high quality parts or cheap knock offs and everything in between...

Even proprietary components can be boot legged...

Then why is it my experiance with today’s electronics is always a disappointment no matter the cost or what the people building, selling or just pushing it because they have been fooled by the former?

Fact be facts electronics is always the first to go!

 

[4570Man]

An electric tractor or any other dirt digging piece of equipment would be a definite no from me. Even if they could put in a days work which currently they can’t my machines pretty much live on the job and there’s usually no electric.

 

[/pine]

Then why is it my experiance with today痴 electronics is always a disappointment no matter the cost or what the people building, selling or just pushing it because they have been fooled by the former?

Fact be facts electronics is always the first to go!

The term that explains your experience is "consumer grade"...

In times past the general rule of thumb was you got what you paid for...these days...warranties are more indicative of quality than price...