751–760 of 814 posts
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with a spanner in one hand and YouTube into the other There are so many useful videos on this stuff, but unfortunately the majority of the population still seems reluctant to learn.
Tangential, but made me think of this YouTube channel I like. I have no plans to own a tractor but for some reason many others and I enjoy videos like this one: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pQO-pVxvKvA
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Slate are trying to cut cost everywhere they can to provide the cheapest barebones EV truck possible. My Volvo EX30 also lacks door speakers and while it's not top tier it's fine tbh. Volvo just put a giant speaker bar across the base of the windshield.
So the equivalent of replacing a 5.1 surround with a beefy soundbar?
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> It said to go to the dealer lol. It's amazing we let it slip this far. Even cars from a decade or so ago feel much more repairable. I bought an EV and I haven't even seen the motor yet, because I'm going to have to dismantle a bunch of plastic-clipped stuff to remove the frunk, and I've broken enough brittle tabs for one lifetime. God forbid they'd just use actual metal fasteners for this stuff.
And example, in the US, is how much the population makeup has changed over time: https://dailyyonder.com/census-report-unusually-informative-... Go back to 1910, and more than 50% of the population lived in rural areas. And rural doesn't mean "suburbs". As this trend continues further back in time, I'd expect that people in their 30s may be living in cities in 1910, but we often not born there. They migrated from rur…
Yeah, that's kind of sad.
I bet that one day kid won't even know what a petrol engine car is, won't know how to drive and will basically just use self driving taxi.
Hopefully I'd be dead before that lol.
Two things: 1. LOVE this idea as I've always been a big fan of "right to repair" and even at work, FinTech SRE/DevOps, I say things like "we want this to be like a 1975 Ford: you open the hood, look inside, understand it and it's easy to fix. We don't want a 2026 Ferrari." 2. The Econ major/MBA in me wonders how long you can sell cheaper tractors that last forever. I say this b/c it's like trying to sell 100 year lig…
Less total sales, but who cares? You build a quality product and everybody is happy.
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No, sadly not. John Deere is very anti right to repair, and they will do anything to make you call up an authorized tech. There are authorized dealers who are not John Deere directly, but they are completely subservient to John Deere (they have to be otherwise they will not get access to the software tooling required to fix equipment), the semantic difference to a farmer is inconsequential, you will be overcharged[1]…
> John Deere is very anti right to repair John Deere's whole business model has been built around being the most repairable — ensuring that you can get the parts when you need them, not days or weeks later. I own farm equipment from all the major brands and I've been burned by that before. Deere is undeniably the winner in repairability. They are quite protective of their intellectual property, that is true. Although…
Some years ago I was stunned to read (tractor forum) a US based farmer lamenting even though JD parts used, they'd had a third party service their tractor, and verified via diagnostics ... and basically had to wait for a JD tech to travel out and unlock their tractor so it could work. I'd assume that's the sort of behaviour that did John Deere in - travel and unlocking fees ffs.
I used to like JD, I've got one though 70s vintage.
Late to the party here, so I don't expect this to get a lot of traction, but I'd like to point out that part of the reason this hasn't existed until recently as an option in the US is because it's functionally illegal for it to exist. > The 12-valve Cummins is arguably the most widely understood diesel engine in North America. Every independent shop, every shade-tree mechanic with a set of wrenches, every farmer who…
> US is because it's functionally illegal for it to exist. This feels like one of those 'burying the lede' situations. Can you explain what's functionally illegal (and I admit that I'm mildly curious about the distinction of functional illegality and non-functional illegality) about this existing? I'm as breathless as you are, after reading that second paragraph, but I nonetheless remain ignorant about the nuances of…
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That, and design tolerances. A fancy clutch can be light and strong (think ferarri) but farm machines need to work in the dirt/rust and so need larger tolerances. So heavier springs and bigger .... Bigger everything. A slipping clutch in a Ferrari is annoying. A slipping clutch on a tractor means a missed harvest.
Plus mechanical release mechanisms of heavier machinery were often designed in a way that the clutch snaps at a certain point (also in order to reduce wear in the clutch).
> The farm equipment industry spent 20 years adding complexity and cost. Ursa Ag is wagering that a significant number of farmers never wanted any of it. Nice tag line but not a complete picture. The "significant number of farmers" in terms of actual market spend driving the equipment industry is not mom-and-pop outfits but rather agri-industrial complexes with machines to match. What they want is (1) availability an…
Farming is a way of life for a lot of people, not just a business. That’s what is missing from your picture. And by population, small time farmers significantly outnumber industrial outfits, regardless of how much they spend. Sure you can make more money selling the most advanced tech to the biggest spenders. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a market for affordable, reliable equipment that gets the job done. Add on the…
Ursa shows us that there is indeed a market for "simple and reliable" equipment -- but it's not cheap or affordable. There is zero market for "affordable" equipment, because almost nobody does small scale farming anymore
Small farms became economically and socially irrelevant almost a century ago in developed countries. Petroleum based fertilizer and industrial machinery drove the marginal cost of food to zero, and it is now only profitable to farm at very large industrial scale.
The main social outcome there was that starvation and malnutrition became vanishingly rare in these countries.
(In fact, _obesity_ is now, for the first time in human history, a widespread problem for the poorest in these societies.)
Society chose "nobody starving" as a better outcome than preserving romantic small farms for the sake of tradition.
[1] Less than 1% of the US population works in agriculture today (https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF12961) as compared to ~30% in the early 20th century.