EUtility Electric Tractor is powered by a battery, not diesel

https://newatlas.com/environment/solectrac-eutility-electric-tractor/

by bornelsewhere • 6 years ago

38 35 6 years ago

This doesn't cover all tractor uses of course, in the Texas Hill Country (think around Austin) there's a pretty large cohort of people (non farmers) that have enough land to necessitate a tractor or bob-cat that will only be used a few times a month.

Imagine being able to "jettison" your battery pack from your classic car EV conversion to plop into your tractor. I know the swappable battery packs failed to take up with the Tesla model, but think about the secondary machines that need occasional power - tractors, ride on lawn mowers, sentimental classic/ hobby vehicle. Things that could be used in series (you won't be moving your lawn and driving your classic car at the same time) that could also benefit as being a power wall.

High class problem for sure, there's a big opportunity to leverage micro-grids + flexible power.

notatoad• 6 years ago

the main problem here is that a battery big enough to power a skid-steer would be too big to lift by hand. and you couldn't use your skid-steer to lift it, so you'd need a hoist or something.

but once you've got a hoist and are moving a big heavy pack between vehicles, i wonder how much else could be in that transferrable pack. is a skid-steer loader similar enough to a light-duty tractor or mini-hoe that you could transfer the motor, hydraulic pump, and battery between different vehicles?

lifeisstillgood2• 6 years ago

One that hits me as a caravan owner - I would love to take the drove chain of my main car and just "plug" it into a motor home shell - in fact have the shell be a two parter - a small runabout car and the extra.

the price of a motor home is basically the cost of a car and the cost of a caravan - an electric motors home in this case would be basically half price

snypher• 6 years ago

You could easily have the skid-steer disembowel itsself and then unplug the battery. As long as it didn't topple over from being unweighted.

seltzered_2• 6 years ago

The problem with this example I think is the price of 45000 USD. I went down a research rabbit hole in this once and largely concluded some cheaper options are either to

- question why you really need a tractor. There's some organic growers on her small plots using push-driven tools rather than riding tractors.

- look into the ge elec-trac community (google it). A tractor built back in the 70s gas crisis that people still cherish. Notably most electric tractor r&d I've seen tends to be done around a gas price crisis (early 70s, 2008)

- seriously consider why you need a tractor if it's small acreage. I've wanted to gift a scythe rather than see people close to me futz with tractors they can't maintain

masonhensley2• 6 years ago

Here's a few (75 acre, non farmable use case):

- cutting grass

- pulling a stump

- leveling a gravel road after a heavy rain wash out

- pushing around a brush pile

- moving some big rocks around

tengbretson• 6 years ago

I wonder if a hybrid drive system similar to the old chevy volts would ever make sense for a tractor. A lot of use cases for tractors (definitely not all, however) are very bursty in nature. I suspect for those use cases you could get away with an engine with a significantly lower peak output.

cmrdporcupine5• 6 years ago

The old Chevy Volt? You're causing me pain. They only discontinued it last year! Mine doesn't feel "old"

For these kinds of compact utility tractors pure electric makes total sense. But you're right for longer running bigger farm tractors and combine harvesters, etc. you'd probably want a hybrid system.

GlenTheMachine3• 6 years ago

I have a hard time seeing this get much traction. The use case for tractors is that you don’t need them all the time, but often when you do need them you need to use them almost continuously. Having to stop for a three-hour charge is almost a non-starter.

This is a bigger issue for larger tractors — when you are harvesting, you just can’t stop. You have to go nearly around the clock until you’re done. You don’t normally use a utility tractor with a front end loader attachment for that. But even for utility tractors, stopping in the middle of a job is an enormous downside. If you are baling hay or drilling fenceposts or loading hay bales, yuo are at the vagaries of the weather and the available daylight. Being able to quickly refuel is a big deal.

coryrc• 6 years ago

I love electric vehicles, but this duty cycle, like ocean-crossing airplanes, is better met by synthetic fuels. (EDIT: unless you plug it into the grid! but if all the farmers did it there's probably not enough capacity)

However, replacing with a fleet of smaller, more generic robots might be there way to go.

toomuchtodo• 6 years ago

Biodiesel is a perfect fit for farm equipment until battery density and charging infra in the field catches up. Filter out those particulates though! Just as bad from biodiesel as it is from fossil diesel.

cmrdporcupine5• 6 years ago

Honestly, I disagree. This isn't a large farm tractor, it's a compact utility tractor. They're more for small farm / rural residential / hobby farm users, not the scenarios you're talking about.

Compact utility tractors like this are really only used for a couple hours. I use mine once or twice a week -- clear the driveway of snow, rototill the garden, spray the vineyard, box scrape the parking pad, haul some dirt with the loader, mow the back field. None of this is more than a couple hours of continuous use.

And if you consider that there's lots of times you're just sitting there idling while shoveling dirt into the loader, an electric tractor wouldn't even be using energy just sitting there waiting for your load. And bonus: not making noise.

I've been waiting for this for a long time, but the price just isn't there yet.

Also, people bailing hay aren't using compact utility tractors like this. They're using bigger tractors. You couldn't even lift a full round bale with this loader.

engineer_22• 6 years ago

First line of article says "If you were a farmer..." So I understand why parent focuses on farm utility.

I agree with parent, productivity is the most important metric for farm equipment. Crops will not wait for you to charge your tractor.

But I also agree with you that this is a toy, not a serious piece of equipment.

GlenTheMachine3• 6 years ago

I am in fact a small farmer and I have and use a compact utility tractor. Sometimes I use it for an hour or two. Sometimes I’m on it all day long.

I lift full 500 lb round bales with my Ford 1320. Very carefully.

vvanders2• 6 years ago

Yup, most of the usage for our CUT is pretty bursty. Longest usage is mowing for ~3 hours. Most CUTs are pretty low on the HP side of things(our's is only 47hp), it's more about weight and gearing.

wongarsu• 6 years ago

The mountable extra battery pack might help somewhat. You can rotate through a number of battery packs as you use one and charge the others back home. You still need someone to shuttle them to and from your tractor.

bryanlarsen2• 6 years ago

Utility tractors aren't often used continuously, power requirements are very bursty. I've had 16 hour days drilling fenceposts, but the tractor itself would only have travelled a few miles. With a diesel tractor you have to leave it running (not idling) to have power at the PTO to run the auger. With an electric tractor it wouldn't use any appreciable power when the auger isn't running so I would bet you could get a full 16 hours of usage out of it between charges.

m4632• 6 years ago

You could just tow a generator during harvest.

It sort of fits the mindset too. Just like a tractor, a generator has lots of uses.

mastazi• 6 years ago

This is cool but I wish they also made a small walk-behind tractor for smaller gardens. I hope one day I will be able to buy something like a BCS but electric.

HeyLaughingBoy• 6 years ago

There are probably BCS electrification projects around.

cmrdporcupine5• 6 years ago

I've looked in the past. I thought about modifying my old Gravely (which I've since sold), but I lack the machining skills. The drivetrain is super simple, but some adapter plates would be needed. But I think the problem here comes down to weight. It would be very hard to have a large enough battery pack while still having it be maneuverable.

mjcarden• 6 years ago

The Fully Charged show recently reviewed an electric tractor available in the UK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClNdrJRan5k

captainredbeard• 6 years ago

The front-loader is humorously under powered, it's too expensive, and too heavy. I want one anyway but I wouldn't buy it over a Kubota. How would it perform in 100 degree weather with the battery?

EUtility Electric Tractor is powered by a battery, not diesel

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