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Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price

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Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price

#81

Post by cout »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #47
sarchertech wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s part of the issue. But packing a tractor (or car) with electronics and computers does make it inherently harder to work on—even if it’s not locked down.

You need electronics and computers for cost-effective compliance with emissions requirements. Emissions limits have been one of the most positive government policies in my lifetime, saving millions of QALYs. There's lots of other electronics in most modern vehicles, but the public manufacturer rationales for electronic lockdowns almost always point back to emissions concerns because they're so defensible. How do you…

How do you define "electronics" and "computers"? Is a general-purpose computer running Java in the same category as a microcontroller running a tight loop with lookup tables for fuel and spark?

Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price

#83

Post by iJohnDoe »

Good. There should be an option for a straightforward mechanical machine. This also has trickledown effect where hopefully regular town mechanics can fix things based on their historical knowledge of engines. Instead of not wanting to touch anything because of the all the electronics involved.

Also, I know this is a strange parallel, but it feels similar to what Dell and HP did to their servers. They made the BIO so complicated that it takes 5-10 minutes for their severs to boot up. Using an older Dell server with a straightforward BIOS that boots up in 30 seconds feels awesome.

Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price

#85

Post by jszymborski »

standeven wrote: post #53
red-iron-pine wrote: post #26

Danielle Smith never met a corporate shill she could say no to I predict 6 months before John Deer gets the Alberta UCP on the line and gets a law passed that bans "unsafe tractors" (or the like)

Then again, she probably loves the idea of tractors with poor fuel efficiency and no exhaust cleaning tech.

An anti-right to repair bill + a carbon tax (except this time it taxes you for not emitting).

Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price

#86

Post by cout »

iamcalledrob wrote: post #78
AlotOfReading wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need electronics and computers for cost-effective compliance with emissions requirements. Emissions limits have been one of the most positive government policies in my lifetime, saving millions of QALYs. There's lots of other electronics in most modern vehicles, but the public manufacturer rationales for electronic lockdowns almost always point back to emissions concerns because they're so defensible. How do you…

Perhaps this is naive, but I would imagine that farm equipment is a rounding error in terms of global emissions. Compare the number of tractors to the number of trucks... I would have expected policy to be pragmatic here, with (relatively) relaxed emissions requirements, since an affordable and reliable food supply is in the national interest? Sounds like that's not the case

Compare the number of tractors to the number of gas-powered lawnmowers. Which do you think gets better emissions?

Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price

#87

Post by fragmede »

jcgrillo wrote: post #70
AlotOfReading wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need electronics and computers for cost-effective compliance with emissions requirements. Emissions limits have been one of the most positive government policies in my lifetime, saving millions of QALYs. There's lots of other electronics in most modern vehicles, but the public manufacturer rationales for electronic lockdowns almost always point back to emissions concerns because they're so defensible. How do you…

> How do you separate them? Mandate common interfaces and open hardware. I shouldn't have to buy a $10k dongle to sniff codes. I certainly shouldn't have to buy a different one for each manufacturer.

The legislation has to be robust. No dice if the dongle is generic and $20 like OBD2 in cars, but that on top of that there's a per-manufacturer set of codes that only licensed dealers have access to the software to read those special codes.

Re: Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price

#88

Post by amluto »

jcgrillo wrote: post #43
sarchertech wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s part of the issue. But packing a tractor (or car) with electronics and computers does make it inherently harder to work on—even if it’s not locked down.

Exactly. Electronically controlled unit injectors are expensive--like 10x the price of mechanical ones. They're super cool, they can produce like 10 separate metered injection events per cycle. This is great for efficiency, noise, emissions, etc. But I can rebuild mechanical injectors with a bottle jack pop tester I made from $100 worth of parts and a bench vise. There's no wiring harness, no computer.. If the inject…

Surely there’s room for a middle ground. There are plenty of 1990s-era engines that were excellent designs, had no meaningful connectivity to anything except their own ECUs, and could be produced new for not very much money. Some of them were quite modular, too — I know someone who took the drivetrain out of a salvaged Honda Civic and built an entire car (with no resemblance whatsoever to a Civc) around it.

If a tractor with a clean-burning, efficient $7500k engine could be purchased and were designed around the theory that, in 20 years or so, the owner could reasonably quickly replace the entire engine (with a first-party or aftermarket solution), would that be a good solution?

The common tech that has solved these problems nicely (IMO) is network transceivers: SFP and similar modules are built according to multi-source agreements. They contain all kinds of exotic tech, and they are not intended to be serviced at all, but (unless your switch or NIC has an utterly stupid lockout) you can pull it out and replace it with an equivalent part from a different vendor in seconds, and those parts can be unbelievably inexpensive considering what’s in them. (Single-mode bidirectional 1Gbps transceivers are $11 or less, retail, in qty 2. This is INSANE compared the the first time I lit up a 1Gbps SMF link. To be fair, this particular tech may require one to replace both ends if one fails, but if you can spare a second fiber, the fully IEEE-spec-compliant interoperable ones are even less expensive.)

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