How the future of farming could look like. A grid connected cable electric tractor with extended power distribution and communication from machine to machine.
Untangling an electric cable is way easier, far safer, and much less messy. A battery-disconnect switch turns that high-voltage line into a copper-core rubber rope. If the hydraulic line isn't full of fluid, it's because it sprayed it all over the place. ... I assume you've untangled Christmas lights or an extension cord at some point in your life, right?
Do they automatically take themselves into the dealership for repairs? Then you could charge $500 to add air to a tire or $1000 to top off hydraulic fluid. Would work great, takes the opportunity of repair away from the farmer before they ever have the chance.
@@adelghid Not why GM made OnStar. GM made OnStar to utilize cellular networks to take business from AAA. It's super profitable. OnStar can't even track a vehicle's location if it's not activated on a vehicle and paid up by the owner. If the owner's not paying their car note, they surely not paying for OnStar.
I don't think this is too far fetched but it will still be years before I think it will be practical . 100 years ago tractors were.still a new way of farming. I would bet if you showed a farmer from the 1920s a tractor from today they would never believe it
I feel like the pencil pushers who come up with these things have never actually driven a tractor or worked a field. In fact, I'm going to guess the closest thing to dirt they have is the flower pots and bush rows around where they live and work.
Thanks to Al, and Barrrrrack you will never be able to work on your engines, as far as the rest of your new prize....only if you buy $10,000 in special tools.
Hi John Deere.Great idea, but still early days.Too much cables.Will work well for the vast even land in the US, but a lot of land is in hillsides and a lot of hooks and crannies.I like the swarm idea and the use of elecric power, but each unit will have to work on its own without the power cables.
I disagree, I don’t want to buy, or be restricted by a battery. They have swing arm systems for manure application that keeps the line from being dragged over standing crops. I’d much rather have a system like that type.
I read years ago that 100 years ago there was same idea, motor wagon and anchror wagon, there was ploug in cables between them. Book say it was good in big fields but unpractical in small ones. It was steam or electric driven.
This is the best alternative *concept* yet, compared to battery operated anyway, but is limited in its application. I could see it where 3 phase goes to the edge of each field and tractors and fields are of moderate size. Such as places like California. But large operations in locations where power is lacking, fields and equipment are larger and obstructions like sloughs are common shouldn't be required to ditch diesel, along with its availablity and flexibility. If these were widely practical they would be beyond the concept stage.
How much would a battery weigh (compared to the weight of the coiled extension cord) to supply current for one complete cycle (up the field and back...where it could pick up another battery)?
It's a nice idea, but I wouldn't want to bet my operation on 100% electric. Probably be more feasible as a diesel- electric powerplant like a locomotive. Reliable tech that already exists.
Actually, a fully electric rig, not necessarily the same as this, should, just like EV's of all stripes, be (more) reliable with far less downtime & thus cheaper to run. Don't forget, most farms have large rooftops &_ plenty of spare room for ground mounted PV & or wind turbines. Pair that with a decent battery storage system & you're laughing all the way to the bank in terms of savings on fuel & maintenance costs. TCO is minimal overall when compared to ICE versions. Being self-reliant for fuel also protects the farmer from the vagaries of world fuel prices & there's no issues with fuel deliveries not turning up either. In the UK we're starting to see a lot of farmers installing large rooftop solar & batteries on their barns & milking sheds because it makes economic sense.
@@pinkelephants1421 Well… unless they discover some kryptonite battery chemistry… Li-on storage is just not feasible or doable! And anyone who believes in plug-in tractors, is just riding the high horse!
@@stormtrooper9404 Plugin tractors are already a reality for some commercial operations, primarily at this point in wineries and the smaller fruit & veg operations. Change is coming whether we're prepared for it or not. Where they would really shine is in poorer more remote communities. They're expensive but instead of individually owned machines, an entire village might be able to finance one via a micro loan & power it via solar power, perhaps with a little battery storage as well.
Better hire an electrician for each site, they’ll be kept busy fixing those trailing cables. After a career of maintaining machinery with trailing cable power supply this kind of makes me cringe. So, do you factor in the power draw and generation of that power when you say it’s co2 neutral?
What's the cost effect for when something goes wrong when you remove the human aspect and put everything robotic a part of the dirt is soft on one machine gets stuck I'm curious to understand how does these machine help each other one part broke everything is done 👈👀👂✅
I could see these being used in tandem with someone in a traditional tractor. You'd have the lead tractor with someone driving it and a group of these machines following close behind, maybe like combines where you have to have multiple machines and more drivers, condense them down to one driver who can make decisions on what to do should the need arise. If Tesla's "self drive" is any indication of things, it's that the fully autonomous systems have a very, very long time before they become viable to use without the human element involved somewhere.
It's hard to see how this would fit into regenerative farming models as farmers are beginning to move away from the industrial agricultural model as demonstrated in the video so that their operations don't destroy their farming future through poor soil management practices & greenhouse gas emissions. Just because something is electric doesn't guarantee that it fits in with the root & branch changes to agriculture coming down the pipeline needed to minimise climate change.
What the hell are we suppose to plug it into? A power outlet at every quarter section? I hope it’s single phase cause it would cost nearly a million dollars to bring in 3 phase power to our rural area……
In 1965 I had a Sunbeam lawnmower with a cord. Not the best idea 💡. There is an Australian company that has electrified Kenworth trucks using exchangeable batteries. Takes less than 4 minutes to make a change out. Better idea 💡!
Farming by hand would work better than this. Any farmer bigger than a hobby needs $2 million in just extension cords. Let's not talk about the $10M+ in New equipment.
Eventually. Would need an infrastructure as complete as the current diesel infrastructure. JCB machinery is already transitioning and will have hydrogen logistics included.
@@thedave7760 the ignorance in this thread is quite monumental. It's quite obvious why the U.S. is struggling in so many aspects especially agriculture.
Gonna take some electric to keep them running !. Lets hope they come with a free fission reactor as a country we will never be able to go fully green with out nuclear of some thing new and radical. But I can see some benefits of this.
Small scale nuclear power plants are already available, they could power a few large scale farms or at best a single large farm for autonomous energy provision.
This or some variation of this will no doubt be in the operations of the future. But at the moment all I care about is where the hell is my 6000 receiver that was ordered 15 months ago??😡😡
Try mowing your yard with a cord and let me know how many things it gets snagged on. Self driving is nice but a cord that’s pretty rich. Good to see the design team didn’t talk to anyone who has ever actually farmed.
So this new setup is more affordable than JDs current line of diesel powered equipment? Yeah of course it isn't. That green paint costs money. Come try this system out in the red dirt, or sand. See how well it works then.
People need to remember that today the tractors already have auto steer and largely drive themselves around the field. The farmer is there to supervise and check on performance, not important to sit in the seat for hours on end, important to check its doing what's expected
john deer needs to support the right to repair or they wont be in the future of farming period. farmers are already buying used equipment instead of new john deers becayse they are unable to work on them
California (We know it’s hot out but our infrastructure can’t handle all the people using their AC units right now. Please turn off your AC and stop washing your cars/watering your gardens/grass it’s putting a major load on our infrastructure) Elites of the world Hey, I have a great idea, let’s make everything electric 🤷🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
As an engineer, I am impressed by the technology. As a city person, I am happy if food prices are cheaper. As a reader of these comments, I am skeptical of John Deere. As a human being, I support the private farmer over corporations. As a liberal, I wonder when farmers will see that powerful corporations control the government, so that even farmers, conservative's biggest supporters, are going to be screwed when deregulation allows corporations to do whatever they want to make a buck. Corporations don't care about making things anymore, they care about finance and the stock market. A basic business concept is that lowering labor costs is the main approach to lowering overall business costs. I wonder if this video looks good to investors who like the idea that they can replace farmers with robots, and control everything from their desktop computer. Lower overhead costs for them. Even if the technology is never directly used, this video mollifies the investor class. Then because they read your comments, they have someone like Donald Trump tell you one thing, but then the companies do something else. Bait and switch, the oldest sales trick in the book. Climate change is real, but they tell you that it's fake news. Then they have companies make climate friendly tech anyway. Confused yet? They are taking their time to change things, because you will push back, but also because they have to continue to make a profit until technology can catch up with the problem. In the meantime, they tell you to get with the program.
Most of the concerns are silly, but the one that actually matters is COST. These things would cost multiple millions per unit and is orders of magnitude above any point where it would be profitable. Economies of scale and technological refinement mean NOTHING when copper isn't getting any cheaper.
Electric Robot farming, But I guess if you have bioreactors to run methane fuel cells you could charge batteries up along with wind and solar. Or a solar updraft tower made to store heat in the ground could work. I wonder if you could grow crops under the glass canopy of a solar updraft tower.
I think in the future, farming will be such a large-scale operation with expensive equipment that it will be publicly owned and orchestrated and the equipment will be autonomous and serviced largely by the manufacturers of the machines or mechanics. Small-scale farming with operator driven machines will only be done in the most difficult terrain by contractors who are heavily subsidized by government. Efficiency of farming will go up overall but will also suffer a little from lacking attention to detail and experience.
If you think that any farm operation, "publicly owned and orchestrated", will have increased efficiency, then you don't have much experience with "publicly owned and orchestrated" activities. It would be a monumentally expensive disaster. Privately owned farms are forced to be efficient and profitable while conserving the land's value and fertility for future generations of their families. Publicly owned and orchestrated activities have no such incentive. The incentive is just the opposite. And there is little or no thought given to preserving the land as they are not handing it down to future generations of their families.
what if it needs to switch fields and needs to cross train tracks and does not see the train???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Yeah, cultivating takes an obscene amount of energy. Batteries were never going to work. This doesn't look very cash-money though. Can only use it on a perfectly flat dirt field, pretty limited application. For every time after the initial planting you gotta go back to the diesel.
I look at this as a force multiplier that family farms desperately need. You don’t make your money sitting in a tractor or combine. You make it behind the equipment, evaluating how well it is performing, taking soil and plant tissue samples, mining and analyzing data. I’m more excited by the NEXAT platform. Sorry John Deere. Controlled Traffic Farming is one of the cornerstones of my operation. I want that 40’ wide track with 1 track being reused on every pass. We’re a several levels above organic that produces soil with crops paying for it all.
Cost? The energy used still comes from coal or nuclear. And what about the farmer who bought a new binder the other year? Jd offers buy back to get into this? I'm all for a green planet but not when power still comes from a coal plant. How long will this tractor last? My 1 car just turned 250k miles, is 22 years old.... I dont think the combustion engine will ever be replaced equally. Ever.
No company runs its self out of business like a Deere ! Who is going to " BUY " a equipment that they can NEVER actually own ? Your actually ONLY RENTING Anything in your possession that has John Deere printed on it ! ANYONE who pays millions of dollars to RENT equipment for eternity is crazy ! You're better off buying old equipment that you CAN own and fix cheap when a breakdown occurs .
That is pretty dum. Like, you cant even like put a driver farmer dude in it inside it! See! How do you even steer it ,, or HIT the GAS PEDLE!!! Lame and dump!!!! I like tracters whith steering wheels, doors, and engiens so yeah! :D
Right to repair? The Free Farmers' Older NON-John Deere Computer Dependent Equipment is in very high demand. Independent Farmers want to stay that way.
It's laughable how these companies are trying to sell more of this overly expensive equipment to the same group of people who have working tractors from the 40s and 50s. Like, we know what quality is, and this new stuff ain't it.
That looks like a disaster. Guess the diesel powered tractors sit and wait to tow everything to the shop. My grandpa had a team of draft horses that plowed and planted the fields. Even fertilized as they went. Took forever to get them to hold the bag of seed right though. Not having thumbs made it difficult.
I'm glad John Deere is here to brag about their tractors. Please do continue... how much of this money ends up going to Russia and China for the batteries and how much environmental damage was done to make them, speaking of which, please show these tractors in action in bitter cold where they often need to be used. Also, Deere surely has lots to tell us about right to repair. I'll stop here for now... please do continue... Sincerely, an old fashioned diesel guy.
It's cool and all but the price of food is already too much. With the price that this equipment has to be the cost will just get pasted on to the consumer. Food just doesn't taste as good as it used to and I think with everybody trying to produce it faster is one of the reasons.
