I invited the CEO to my farm and we had a chat about their plans. I am impressed that they launched exactly what he said that they would...it seems to me that they are the only ones in the Agrobotics market(and I know/have spoken to 15-17 of them worldwide) who can scale because they have a solid plan and can ramp up. And they will be affordable. They have ticked all the boxes that create the (manufacturing) bottlene…
Electric Monarch tractor can plow a field without a driver and run for ten hours
61–70 of 160 posts
Re: Electric Monarch tractor can plow a field without a driver and run for ten hours
#62Once John Deere starting DRM’ing their tractors it just screams entrenched monopoly. But where’s the barrier to entry? AI is going to dramatically alter this competitive landscape and John Deere’s DRM is not going to to stop it. Honestly, I love watching these companies drive nails into their own coffins. I was on the Google homepage today on my iPhone and was getting popups advertising Chrome (on the homepage!) and…
I would love this state, but getting there is not simple. DRM is just one facet of it: companies selling machinery have worked on hardware for decades, making their systems physically robust and able to take lots of abuse. This raises the barrier to entry a lot. My 2c.
Re: Electric Monarch tractor can plow a field without a driver and run for ten hours
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s not enough to exist. You actually have to perform at least comparably, which DDG doesn’t unfortunately.
Yeah I've tried DDG reliably for nearly a year. A good 30% of the time I end up having to run my query on Google anyway. I will literally pay money for a search engine that's privacy focused and can get closer to Google in terms of performance.
Re: Electric Monarch tractor can plow a field without a driver and run for ten hours
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hundreds of hours, perhaps. But not for the entire life of the engine. If a modern passenger car engine could put out 200 hp nonstop for years on end, every semi-truck manufacturer would be putting a BMW engine in it, instead of a huge cast iron Cummins. But I'm pretty sure you'd spin a bearing, or wear out the cylinder liner, or burn a valve.
If you tuned a semi engine for peak power the way automotive engines are they wouldn't last 400k either. You can get automotive engines with similar power to weight or power to displacement numbers as semi truck engines. They're just normal automotive engines sold for industrial use.
Re: Electric Monarch tractor can plow a field without a driver and run for ten hours
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve seen lawn mowers that do that. No solar charging, but it does cut grass in the dark. It’s actually pretty creepy to see the head light pop out from behind a corner.
That sounds awful from a noise perspective. I live across the street from a shopping center, and they tend to do all of their cleaning late at night, to avoid disturbing customers. No care at all for the sleep of neighbors when running leaf blowers at 11 PM.
Re: Electric Monarch tractor can plow a field without a driver and run for ten hours
#66+ Really good idea to make use of the electricity in other ways than just driving. (generators, lamps, etc.) + 10 hours covers up a good day in field. - a lot of farms are away from electricity sources to charge and sometimes internet connection is non-existent. It is risky to leave a 50k machine on its own to do its job. And what to do if battery runs out on the field? - how long does it take to recharge? A lot of f…
In the US? Not true. The vast majority of US farms have power for one simple reason, they irrigate. It'd be far too expensive to irrigate using a gas pump.
The exception MIGHT be dry farms, but those aren't as common as you might think. Further, most farms have shops for repairs which almost always have power for lights (and heat sometimes).
> And what to do if battery runs out on the field?
Simple, grab a gas generator, run to the tractor, and charge it up enough to hobble it to the shop and to a full charge. You might waste an hour running your generator, but that's really not that big of a deal. Many farmers already have those generators (welding is a big reason why).
A particularly ecologically focused farmer might buy some solar panels to do the same thing :).
> how long does it take to recharge? A lot of farmers will not have fast charges on their farm.
Doesn't really matter, it can charge overnight slowly. So long as the farm has access to 240V they likely can get it charge up in the 14 hours of downtime.
At $50k, this is a particularly cheap tractor as well. I'd suspect that farmers would buy 2 and completely sidestep the charging problem if they wanted to run for more than 10 hours.
Re: Electric Monarch tractor can plow a field without a driver and run for ten hours
#67+ Really good idea to make use of the electricity in other ways than just driving. (generators, lamps, etc.) + 10 hours covers up a good day in field. - a lot of farms are away from electricity sources to charge and sometimes internet connection is non-existent. It is risky to leave a 50k machine on its own to do its job. And what to do if battery runs out on the field? - how long does it take to recharge? A lot of f…
It's actually quite common for farms to have 3 phase power at the least. Modern farming is heavily industrialized. There's all sorts of dryers or blowers or other processing equipment to be run depending on the crop or livestock. Renewables, either self owned or leased land access are a big growth thing too. This means you can be in the boonies of western Kansas and yet be proximate to truly staggering amounts of intermittent generation.
> and sometimes internet connection is non-existent.
It's not great service, but sat internet is pervasive (and yes before the mob shows up starlink is likely to vastly improve this). The main thing this needs is connectivity between the unit and farmer, which is just local wireless.
> It is risky to leave a 50k machine on its own to do its job.
The price isn't a factor in any way I can think of. Any farm bigger than trivial will have several 100 thousand dollars if not millions worth of machinery parked out in the open, and tractor automation has been a big deal for a while now including examples of self driving for simple tasks.
> And what to do if battery runs out on the field?
Probably use the farm truck to haul the portable generator up to it to charge enough to get er back to the barn. Or call the neighbor and ask for a tow. Traditional tractors get stuck all the time. On the scale of problems farmers solve routinely this is very easy.
I think it's probably easy for the audience here to misunderstand what modern farming is like due to unfamiliarity. Farming is high tech now, and farmers are amazing problem solvers. But even historically that was true. Your idealized turn of the century farmer in the US knew how to operate and fix steam engines, pumps, do basic metalwork among many other things. Modern farmers are often skilled builders and fabricators as well.
Re: Electric Monarch tractor can plow a field without a driver and run for ten hours
#68+ Really good idea to make use of the electricity in other ways than just driving. (generators, lamps, etc.) + 10 hours covers up a good day in field. - a lot of farms are away from electricity sources to charge and sometimes internet connection is non-existent. It is risky to leave a 50k machine on its own to do its job. And what to do if battery runs out on the field? - how long does it take to recharge? A lot of f…
Hi whizzkid - great questions! Our tractor provides real time alerts and can notify farm operators when the battery is low, if human or obstacle halts operation. Like jmtulloss mentioned, we do have a battery swap cart so you can swap out a battery with one person in under 10 minutes. Standard charge time at 220v is 4-5 hr. You can find all the specs at monarchtractor.com
Re: Electric Monarch tractor can plow a field without a driver and run for ten hours
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sounds awful from a noise perspective. I live across the street from a shopping center, and they tend to do all of their cleaning late at night, to avoid disturbing customers. No care at all for the sleep of neighbors when running leaf blowers at 11 PM.
IIRC, it was near silent. That’s what makes the lights coming out of nowhere extra creepy.
Re: Electric Monarch tractor can plow a field without a driver and run for ten hours
#70+ Really good idea to make use of the electricity in other ways than just driving. (generators, lamps, etc.) + 10 hours covers up a good day in field. - a lot of farms are away from electricity sources to charge and sometimes internet connection is non-existent. It is risky to leave a 50k machine on its own to do its job. And what to do if battery runs out on the field? - how long does it take to recharge? A lot of f…
> - a lot of farms are away from electricity sources to charge It's actually quite common for farms to have 3 phase power at the least. Modern farming is heavily industrialized. There's all sorts of dryers or blowers or other processing equipment to be run depending on the crop or livestock. Renewables, either self owned or leased land access are a big growth thing too. This means you can be in the boonies of western…
I grew up on a farm so it was kind of funny reading "A lot of farms don't have access to electricity"
It's weird to read something like that. Every farm in my farming hometown had power nearby. Heck, you'll see power lines all across Idaho primarily for farmers running pumps. You simply don't get more rural than Idaho.
To put things into perspective, this house has power.
https://goo.gl/maps/x6ZiGMhxbKxfHJSj7
Make sure you zoom out to get some perspective on how remote that little house is.