Electric_tractor

sourgum · Jan 8, 2020

Fendt claims to have the first electric tractor. The E100 Vario claims 67 hp. In light duty operations supposed to have 5 hr run time with the 650 V lithium ion battery. This is a European company , not sure these are available in the US just yet. They say their first customers likely to be town utility departments.Believe there are other companies like JD that are testing a prototype electric tractor.

coshoo · Jan 8, 2020

5 hour run time? Don't know a lot of farmers that are ready to call it quits after 5 hours, but might work well for municipalities, who are lucky if they get 5 hours of work a day out of their employees.

JayinNY · Jan 8, 2020

Now that?s funny!

gtractorfan · Jan 8, 2020

Must be an electric company's cooling tower in the backround. Electricity has to be generated by something.

TDJD · Jan 8, 2020

Fendt is an AGCO brand, so technically it?s a US company.

FBH44 · Jan 8, 2020

Maybe you ought to just go down to the maintenance barn, go in the shop and tell them, I bet they'd like to hear that opinion.

db4600 · Jan 8, 2020

We watched the city grass cutters in the town north of The Flying Belgian, East of Paul. They traveled in front of the building project as we were within site of the city shop. Now if you include travel time driving to and from for start, break, lunch, and end they had more than 5 hours.

tim s · Jan 8, 2020

Around here you would have to wake them up first to tell them.....

David G · Jan 8, 2020

Electric makes a lot of sense for the hobby farmer and acreage.

coshoo · Jan 8, 2020

I didn't say they don't show up for 8 hours- just that its hard to get more than 5 hours work out of them.

What's orange and sleeps 3?
A state pickup.

By the way, I worked for the guvment for a couple years- I know whereof I speak.

oldsarge · Jan 8, 2020

I noticed that !!

Bill(Wis) · Jan 8, 2020

Not in the same league but General Electric sold a series of garden tractors in the 1960s called "Elec-Trac". Some of them are said to be still in use. They were made in various sizes one even being an industrial model.

Geo-TH,In · Jan 8, 2020

My dad bought an electric riding mower from Sears back in the late 60s.
It was powered with 3 huge 12v wet Cell.
I was constantly repairing it.
Very quiet. Sounded like a knife slicing lettuce.
Almost like my mom's electric golf cart. I had to work on it every time I went to Florida. Good thing there was a golf cart place near by to get parts.
My son said a golf course in Plainfield that got rid of their electric carts because of maintenance. Went with gas.
George

9001ron · Jan 8, 2020

You would think that electric tractors would have been much ahead of electric cars. Problem with electric cars is the batteries weigh so much--- which wouldn't bother a tractor at all, Secondly in a electric car you would be looking for a charging station in unfamiliar country that is if you were on a trip, with a tractor you know exactly where the charging station is. With cars the charging time is a major problem with people being very impatient-- with a tractor there is usually lots of time to recharge -- and if there isn't -- the battery pack could be swapped out for fresh batteries -- I dont think a farmer would mind doing that but take the average person on the free way in LA and they would not likely even know what a battery was let alone swap it out.
Another draw back with electric cars is heating the cabin in the winter-- which drastically shortens there range. With tractors they dont spend long hours for the most part working in the winter--- usually just chores like moving bales or moving snow and the like. All that electricity that usually gets burnt up heating the engine block in the winter can now be used for charging the batteries--- WIN__ WIN

Don Hopf · Jan 8, 2020

I have a New Idea Electrak ET150 which was made by GE but paint the NI orange and cream. Don't have the right batteries but will run on 3 car batteries. Have the mower deck on it also.

Brendon-KS · Jan 8, 2020

The huge difference between cars and tractors is how much power they need to develop on a continuous basis. It only takes about 15-20 horsepower to propel a reasonably aerodynamic sedan at highway speeds on level ground, about the same amount of power as an average riding lawn mower. Compared to a tractor putting out 75 hp a given battery capacity would last 4 to 5 times longer in the car. Or, put another way, the tractor's battery would have to be 4 to 5 times as large to get the same hours of use between charges. And, every time the car slows down the battery can be recharged a bit with regenerative braking which there is no ability for in most tractor applications. Large batteries are expensive and for most tractor applications it just doesn't make financial or practical sense yet. It all comes down to the fact that the power density of batteries is still greatly less than the power density of gasoline or diesel fuel, even with the recent rapid progress of battery technology. This is a significant limiting factor in converting mobile machines from petroleum to electric power.

roy prins · Jan 8, 2020

speaking of electric tractors- I had a conversation with a fellow the other day and He said John Deere was doodling in the train style of electric tractors -- still using a deisel engine coupled to a generator and powering an electric motor for the drive -- variable speed !!very few gears!! Roy

Bill(Wis) · Jan 8, 2020

You know, that's a great way to keep them going. I think the originals were 37 volts???

caterpillar guy · Jan 9, 2020

I can see that working out real well with the home place 5-50 miles away. Just puller up to the plug on the headland. Or a crane to switch battery packs.

paul · Jan 9, 2020

It lasts 5 hours in ?light duty.?

What if you actually use it, 3 hours?

Then what is the recharge time?

I got a new to me big tractor, I?m a little disappointed it barely covers 60 acres on a tank of fuel chisel plowing.

It looks a little big for the hobby farmer, but can see it working for them.

Would be the right size power plant for a skid steer, the govt wrecked diesels so that it?s hard to use the def diesels as a chore machine. Might be electric is a good option for mid or smaller dairy skid steer where you run 15-90 minutes at a time, then parked until the next chore time.

Paul

MarkB_MI · Jan 9, 2020

Twenty years ago, who would have believed that battery-powered lawn mowers would be commonplace? Electric tractors certainly have their place, although for now that is not for most agricultural applications.

buickanddeere · Jan 9, 2020

Looks good , sounds good , politically correct . Is it practical, no.
Cost, 1-2 hours per charge and 4-18hrs per charge .
If anyone tells you "new batteries are the way ". Turn them around and kick their dumb @ss out of your way .
Lithium batteries are near their peak capacity .
As for new batteries , check the periodic table and tell me what element you plan on using that nobody else has tried .

ss55 · Jan 9, 2020

Electric tractors may not be well suited for open field tillage yet, but they might be well suited for yard work in livestock operations. The cost per Hp-Hr of electricity (one HP-Hr produced per Kwatt-Hr consumed at $.10 to $.15 per Kwatt-Hr in rural areas) is less than the cost of diesel fuel (16 to 18 Hp-Hr/gallon). Quiet operation without emission could be a benefit inside livestock buildings.

WNYBill · Jan 9, 2020

Electric tractor would sure reduce the number of parts. Total fuel system, transmission and even brakes. But 5 hours at 70 degrees computes to 2-2.5 hours at 10 degrees. Might work for the hobby farmer, but doubt the price would!

Now a diesel electric tractor or long haul truck makes sense. That's probably why there aren't any!

Bill

CenTex Farmall · Jan 9, 2020

I saw a LeTourneau wheel loader for sale that was diesel/electric. It was massive though. Not sure if it would scale down to midsize tractors.

9001ron · Jan 9, 2020

Tractors that spend there time out in the field pulling at max hp could have a battery pack as sort of a trailer behind the traction unit. This would make swapping out batteries very easy. Or it could even be a kind of cart pushed at the front of the tractor. An electric tractor dosent need to look like a convention tractor- being electric gives you a continuously variable drive eliminating the transmission and engine -- also the cooling system and fuel tanks. This leaves lots of room for batteries and if you go over boad wih them you can get rid of all your liquid ballast and cast weights as well.
Around here every body does zero till with most of the farming done with a sprayer . Sprayers do work hard especially when it is wet but they dont require the HP that say a tractor pulling a air seeder does. I think a sprayer would be a good candidate for an electric drive.

pinball · Jan 9, 2020

I would suggest you go work on a real farm for a couple days. not the hobby farmers but a real farm to see how you would fare. might wake you up to what a real farmer does. don't imagine you would last long.

coshoo · Jan 9, 2020

And I would suggest, Pinball, that you read my post again, and try to understand it this time- I was saying "real farmers" work far too much to be able to get by with a tractor that needs recharging after 5 hours.

As far as knowing what a real farmer does, I grew up on a dairy farm, so am pretty aware of the subject. Also worked summers in high school bucking bales from daylight to dark on a "real farm"- I lasted 4 summers at that, considerably in excess of the 2 days you suggested. Also had 40 head of cattle when in my 20's, put up hay for them myself, and worked a full time job to boot.

Brendon-KS · Jan 9, 2020

The cost of batteries is still the limiting factor. Diesel fuel contains around 38 kW-hrs per gallon and assuming 30% efficiency means there are about 570 kW-hrs of energy that actually does work in a 50 gallon fill-up. Using today's average battery cost of around $100 per kW-hr the price of a single battery pack to match the work capacity of this rather modest amount of diesel fuel is over $50,000. The price of batteries will have to drop a lot before this becomes financially viable.

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