Electric Farm Tractor Development

Good Morning SC,

Try a Google search of "eu electric farm tractor". I came up with quite a few non-US hits. Although I did not weed through all of them, I did not see anything realistic.

The concept is great but I just don't see it being viable given todays technology if you are talking about an average to large scale agricultural operation.

We have had years where due to forecast inclement weather or schedule constraints we have combined 16 - 18 hours straight running a tractor with a grain wagon alongside the combine unloading on the fly the whole time.

Same goes for plowing and planting operations. Two years ago we planted 24 hours straight across three shifts with the tractor running the whole time.

In either of the above cases, battery and/or solar powered, I don't see it happening in the near future.

Thanks KJK, your the person Im looking for, an experienced farmer to shoot the bad suggestions down before I go to far down the rabbit hole, and I m not kidding or being snide, finding someone with experience is valuable.

I understand long days, but what if the battery packs could be switched out like towing a trailer? or...

About how much fuel did you go through in 24 hours and what is the fuel cost per year? (ballpark)

Thanks SC

Hi SC,

During planting season you may be pulling a cultivator, ripper, or planter. Towing an additional battery trailer which I can only assume would be large and heavy would be a general pain due to limiting tight turns, backing and switching out the discharged battery units with charged ones.

During harvest season, it would be out of the question. The name of the game is when the combine is running (combining) you do not want it to stop for any reason, thus, unloading the combine into a wagon towed by a tractor on the fly. If you are switching out battery units, the combine will eventually have to stop.

From the time the wagon is full (from combine hopper), you have to haul a$$ to unload the wagon into a larger roadside wagon. By the time you get back to the combine (depending on where your roadside unit(s) is/are parked) the combine is ready to start unloading again. In the mean time while all the field loading/unloading is taking place, when the roadside (larger) wagon is full, that has to be taken to the local elevator to be unloaded. The operation must be a continuously running, coordinated operation to be efficient.

As far as fuel consumption, while planting, the JD 4630 will consume 20 to 25 gallons per day (or average 2 GPH). During harvest season, running a JD 9500, when harvesting beans, fuel usage is around 10 GPH. When harvesting corn usage is around 12 GPH.

Average fuel used per year is in the area of 2500 to 4000 gallons (based on 800 acres planted/harvested). This varies greatly depending upon field conditions (dry/wet ground), moisture content of grain, which local elevator we are using (distance to travel), ambient temperature (running AC or not). Average fuel cost this year was $2.78 P/G.

Again, battery power, great concept but given todays technology, would require too much time and human effort keeping the operation running. Plus, what would be the input cost for the battery equipment? I have no idea but between cost and additional field labor, I don't see it being feasible anytime soon.

I agree i dont see it as feasible today, but Im investigating the possibility because Im concerned about being backed into a corner on fuel prices, some are predicting doubling of fuel prices in the next couple of years.

I just want to hedge my bets.

Your size of tractor for 800 acres sounds about right, Im looking at an initial study size of 15 feet in length, what would be considered a small farm tractor or a back hoe.

If I can establish a min. horse power and convert that, I could have some idea of the energy requirement and the storage requirement.

Just investigating the idea.

What if the design was changed radically with a large array of solar panels on top to supplement?

Consider the opportunity to beat current manufacturing costs by using a frame more like a truck instead of the big unifame engine case and transmission. If the electric motors were placed in each wheel on planetary ring gears this would raise the axel height to the top of the tire, like in some Kubotas, could manufaturing costs be saved if smaller tires were used?

The potential rise in fuel prices is artificial. Right where i live, there is enough oil and gas in the ground to power all of north america for the next 50 years at least. I don't think this was every about a shortage in supply. It is all economic warfare against the little people. Albertans were starting to really get wealthy by 2008... and they don't want a large population of weathy people... By popping the trust bubbles, they harvest the local money, inhibit the local growth, force more imports and offshore drilling, etc. mission accomplished

just my tinfoil hat point of view.

Hey Chris,

Amen brother, I agree with you 100,000,000,000,000%

^{This is a discussion for another day, my head hurts}

KJK

A better question is who owns the resource & how is it being valued?

You also need to calculate loads such as power steering, lights (8 @ 100W each), air conditioning (ever been in an enclosed tractor due to the dust being thrown off by the combine your running along side of on a 65 or + degree day), PTO (power take off), and hydraulic pump for equipment accessories.

As far as smaller tires, the rear tires I run, 18.4-38 are roughly 70 inches high and I run duals for field work. Having been bogged down in saturated soil more than once or pulling multiple loaded wagons, I would not want anything smaller. This is in addition to the shock absorbing benefit you get with the larger tires.

As far as electric motors at each of the drive wheels, I could not imagine the torque required just to break inertia. My head is spinning just thinking about it _{^{(or could be the adult beverages consumed last night and the mayhem being created by the little ones running amok since 6AM).}}

And lastly, as far as redesigning the tractor itself, have at it but the current design is tried and true. Personally, I would not want to be sitting on a truck frame given some of the field conditions I run.

I agree, fuel prices along with the other input costs not to mention what we get at the elevator are a major concern.

Solar panels? I think that would be a very large array.

I'm not by any means trying to blow your idea out of the water but in this day and age the cost and size of auxiliary equipment required to support an electric tractor would not be realistic.

Good luck with your endeavor! Who knows, in 50 years, future farmers may very well be operating "Spacecannon Electric Tractors"

SC,

The main thrust of thought is squarely on storage batteries of some sort to supply energy to electric motors.

How about investigating the possibility of harnessing chemico-electric fuel cells to supply that energy. Converting a fluid or gaseous fuel directly to electricity.

Have seen some work on hydrogen being harnessed from hydrocarbon fluids, not neccessary petro fluids. Bio fluids are a definite possibility. These can be 'farmed', perhaps increasing the economies for the farmer. Certainly reducing the reliance on oil wells.

The advantage, when developing tractors, is that one doesn't have to continually consider vehicle mass as a problem. Tractors must have considerable mass, and large diameter driving wheels, to have effective traction.

Of course, you may develop an entirely new paradigm in the application of effective machinery to achieve farm jobs, like sowing, reaping etc., on farms, thereby rendering the traditional tractor redundant.

Someone WILL eventually do it.

Cheers,

Stu.

I agree with the more experienced KJK/USA here. It's impractical at best, folly at worst.

Batteries are just not the correct power source for farm equipment.

I live out in the country and we have an number of tractors for doing hay work and other things through out the year. For basic numbers our old Massey Ferguson 2745 ,140 HP, has a 75 gallon fuel tank and when blowing snow and working it hard it burns about 5 -6 gallons of diesel fuel an hour. Our smaller older tractors can burn around 20 gallons in a long day so from that you should be able to reverse calculate the required power needed per working shift.

For a larger scale example some friends of mine who I drive semi for during harvest have the bigger modern equipment. Their combines and large field tractors can easily burn over 300 gallons in 24 hours.

At those power requirement levels battery's just wont cut it especially when you need to support upwards of 250 - 350 KW loads non stop for 12 hours or better between recharge cycles.

Until they develop battery's that are less than 120 cubic feet in volume, rated in the multiple Megawatt hour capacities, can be charged in under 15 minutes all while having decade or better service lives modern farmers will have little interest in having electric powered machinery.

Tcmtech,

Thank you for the info and your opinion it is much appreciated.

SC

I,m developing an electric tractor for green farming in British Columbia. Its electricity generation uses energy of the environment to energize each new multi-phase electric motor in every wheel.

As I'm partly paralyze the progress is slow, but I hope that in 2011 I would complete the prototype. This tractor would never need to be charged as it charges itself. Expected power 10 kW in each wheel (40 kW all together). How do you like that?

Energy of the environment is continuously increasing, due to Global Warming and we can take advantage of it by developing a technology that converts that useless form of energy, which we do not know how to use, into useful that we know how to use.

I think that US electric tractor is not match for mine, but I do not know what it is so would not criticize the American concept and would appreciate if you could described it shortly, without revealing secrets.

Wow, perpetual motion at last!

Wow, I see a nobel prize in your future you have solved the world's energy problems and developed perpetual motion that works. perhaps you shoule keep dreaming. I am picturing a tractor with a windmill attached to each wheel.

I don't see windmills on those wheels. Remember, " converts that useless form of energy, which we do not know how to use, into useful that we know how to use."

This is something far more revolutionary than wind power. My poor little brain can't even conceive of a, "form of energy, which we do not know how to use."

I can see the headline now, "Mr. Guest receives Nobel Prize for converting that useless form of energy, which we do not know how to use, into useful that we know how to use."

I would suggest "heat into work." as the useless energy.

but seeing as ultimately we are all energy, and a more than a few politicians are useless...[insert list here] we could put them to work on the farm.

ps. I'm not the OP.

You might be on to something here. If we could find a way to harness all the hot air generated by politicians, we might be close to perpetual motion.

I don't really think perpetual motion, other than the constant motion.

I think Brownian motion... small minds (with big mouths) constantly moving... not really doing anything productive... but still creating a sort of 'brown' pressure that citizens mistake for effective action.

but not all politicians.

good one, lynlynch. cant wait til the nobels are announced.

Thanks. We need to hook this guy up with Dr. Greer of The Disclosure Project from this thread. Credible UFO Testimony

you know British Columbia is primarily mountains...

so perhaps this is a tractor that only runs downhill? a gravtrac!

of course it would have to use the ever "increasing useless energy from the environment" to get back up the hill.

and if that useless energy is heat, then this must be a steam or stirling / electric engine of very high efficiency to get 10Kw per wheel. (Is each wheel a stirling engine?)

I think that there are two basic thermal effects that can be used to generate power. the thermoelectric effect, and the expansion of gases (ie steam) (if we disallow convection as useful to engines). There are no thermo-semiconductor cells (that I know of) that convert heat directly into electrixity.

The other "increasing useless energy from the environment" might be carbon dioxide. It must be a form of energy because trees use it... but how do we use it? I don't know.

Chris

Well you mentioned global warming which is only believed in by uneducated idiots now so I suspect that your unused and normally useless form of energy could be ignorance and stupidity itself.

They are both seen to affect their surroundings and have long since shown themselves to be self renewing.

Good Lord! If you did some how manage to harness the power of ignorance and stupidity I suspect you could easily power all of the worlds energy demands and have lots left over!

can u plz elaborate your problem.

Dear Guest,

May I suggest that first you 'elaborate' what that useless energy is, how it is converted to be useful, also defining in what useful form it will be available. That would be great.

Of course, if any or all anwsers would reveal a secret, you must keep it to yourself.

I spent some time in my youth on a moster of a tractor in Alberta Canada, too young to grasp all the nuances of tractor tech., but it was not airconditioned.

I guess Im thinking about a small farm tractor, mid to large Kubota, with out all the bells and whistles. Just something I could use on 50-100 acres to keep me and mine alive if everything went to hell.

Thanks for your opinions, but I feel it is still worth investigating given how far electric cars have come and since tractors dont need to travel that far (typically), and that this could be built without all the constraints that come with building cars.

Thank for you time and opinions, Im signing off, as it seems to have become a devolving discussion.

There is a hybrid tractor in development designed to make the electricity it needs with an onboard turbogenerator running on 130-proof ethanol. Similar concept to the diesel-electric train locomotives.

Interesting idea

Electrical transmission in tractors (between prime mover and wheels) is imminent, has been in development for a number of years as it offers a more efficient transmission of power as a CVT than the current hydromechanical CVTs. Proof of concept combine harvesters have been built which are also electric. If you were to put a smallish gas turbine generator in front of that transmission and ran it on gasses extracted from a biodigester into which you fed all crop/human/animal residues you'd get somewhere. You'd need to be in a position where you had extravagant crop growth and highish ambient temperatures to give you all you needed in terms of growth & digestion.

You could go retro of course. Horses, cattle and basic tools. Worked for humanity for a very long time.