Electric farm vehicles

[dan_b]

This looks cool, a 50kWh electric tractor. Uses LFP cells too.

https://electrek.co/2021/08/04/solectra ... for-75000/

[Mart]

OK, apologies in advance for this but **SMUG MODE**. They offer a swappable 60kWh battery pack for $18k.

I've been wittering on for years that farms + PV + heavy plant + swappable batts + experienced operators = an ideal mix.

I do so hope this works, and that packs may be useable across a range of farm vehicles and machinery.

[Mr Gus]

For farming it makes sense to have interchangeable, but when you are cranking out a harvest that Interchangeability may be sorely tested, as it's often all hands to the pumps

Then again you might get battery rental units kept for seasonal demand at a big agri business dealer, who knows.

But yes it has obvious merits, would push the age of vintage machinery ifrom this era into the grave though unless someone cobbled together smaller operational display packs (down the line)

[nowty]

A 60 kWh swappable battery is going to weigh about half a ton.

[Oliver90owner]

And a 60kWh battery in a 50kW machine is going to last how long, if used for heavy tillage? Yes, up to 8 hours at farmyard duties is easy. Might need 3 or 4 spare batteries if working it hard.

[Mr Gus]

The example is specialist & presumably designed for a few applications within the nearby environment,
It is the size of tractor left over from the 60's & 70's (fine by me) compared to the behemoths of the past 20 years which is where size & application of "tractor units" mesh.

The sample size is commonplace for a lot of the "3rd world" agri-business, so yes it has a market, this is also the type of size that have been given to the north koreans by NGO's (sometimes pictured in the press with a "worker" trying to block the "gift from the UN" signwriting.

They might have been told it's a gift from "UN"cle ..but they ran out of paint

By contrast the ever bigger tractor units sold by the likes of Claas & Deere are beasts, & that's where the math needs laying out to understand markets, costs & battery swapping, these are not are not going to be a straightforward one man job to swap out based on size, bulk etc & alter the whole hydraulic to maybe lift & back into like a cassette battery?

Or are we proposing a mid mount tine fork loading over the centre of the unit?

[Mr Gus]

There is an opportunity I guess to tie large vehicle battery (tractor unit combine etc) to the local power network via farm vehicle dealer distributors to prop it up & be pulled out of the equation for harvest, but a big investment that no-one would really like to contemplate unless the govt pull fingers out & add it into a food & energy security model, otherwise there is potential for large scale batteries to simply sit there 10 months of the year on a standby charge (when you scale it to uk midsize to largescale farmers kit)