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For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

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Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#121

Post by artursapek »

asdff wrote: post #38
pleasantpeasant wrote: post #29

Right to repair laws need to be put in place. American corporations are trying to reach a point where you don't own products. You are merely long-term renting or leasing products from them. And any alterations or repairs will come with a heavy price. It's already hard enough to repair your own vehicle without taking it to a dealership. How long until small car shops can't even fix any cars if they don't have the tool…

That reality is already here. Good luck getting your Tesla serviced at the local garage.

While that's true, at least electric cars have a low maintenance burden compared to ICE cars.

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#123

Post by bluGill »

dsalzman wrote: post #58

Opportunity for a company like $TESLA or other startup to provide additional competition in the farm equipment space. It's a duopoly between John Deere (Green) and Case IH (Red). A modular electric system would work well since the required speeds are low and torque is important. Extra points for a small wind turbine based charging station that can mount to a barn.

A tesla uses about 20 horsepower to push itself down the freeway (it is capable of much more, that is what it is using after about 5-10 seconds to get up to speed). A tractor rated at 100 horsepower is expected run at 100 horsepower output continuously. 100 horsepower tractors are considered small (or maybe mid size) tractors these days.

In short, a battery operated tractor will need to stop to recharge every 5 minutes - if you can find batteries that will allow you to discharge that fast, most will not.

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#125

Post by RosanaAnaDana »

pmiller2 wrote: post #92
froindt wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard of farmers going so far as to make their own GPS guidance systems, enhanced before they were widely available and reasonably priced. I'm not sure how accurate and repeatable they were. Going to any farm that's been around for 20+ years, you'd see so many custom solutions that are really functional. Farmer one-off solutions are kind of like homebrew Excel applications - they're infinitely customizable, the…

Does civilian GPS have enough resolution to be useful in a tractor guidance system?

RTK does. Also, fields are big and 'generally' there isn't much to hit out there. I think most new harvesters these days are self driving.

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#126

Post by [deleted] »

zozbot234 wrote: post #89
scarmig wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Milking your customers is not good for business, especially if you drive them into insolvency. It clearly is good for business, even if it's bad for customers and society at large. Pretending it's bad for business just encourages complacency because it suggests that the natural discipline of the market will drive the milkers out of business and encourage good business practices. But that doesn't happen, and if we w…

It's good for the business in the short run, but not in any other sense. Reputation matters quite a bit when it comes to this sort of costly, mission-critical equipment, and any John Deere competitor now has an easy way of grabbing some of that market share.

[deleted]

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#127

Post by froindt »

pmiller2 wrote: post #92
froindt wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard of farmers going so far as to make their own GPS guidance systems, enhanced before they were widely available and reasonably priced. I'm not sure how accurate and repeatable they were. Going to any farm that's been around for 20+ years, you'd see so many custom solutions that are really functional. Farmer one-off solutions are kind of like homebrew Excel applications - they're infinitely customizable, the…

Does civilian GPS have enough resolution to be useful in a tractor guidance system?

I belive they were enhancing it with terrestrial base stations (Loran-C was mentioned in the discussion, which was 10+ years ago). John Deere has proprietary secret sauce and if I recall correctly, they can get sub 1" accuracy. That precision farming has enabled things like different amounts of fertilizer for different parts of the field, a substantial material savings and improvement for the environment.

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#128

Post by earlINmeyerkeg »

macinjosh wrote: post #98

My grandfather, rest his soul, was a 3rd generation rancher and farmer. He bought 2 John Deere tractors in the '80s and used them for 35 years. They are still being used to this day on the ranch. Growing up, I visited the ranch regularly. Farming and ranching is very hard on equipment so the tractors often needed repair. My father and grandfather could seemingly fix anything on the tractor without even needing to go…

The greatest innovation in the history of mankind was a land consolidation. It took what 100 peasants all making enough food for subsistence living to 100 peasants be able to make enough food for thousands of people.

It's not sad, it's progress.

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#129

Post by aj7 »

brenden2 wrote: post #16

The technology itself is not the issue, the problem is that companies are at war with their customers. These companies will go to any length to extract as much revenue as possible. Milking your customers is not good for business, especially if you drive them into insolvency. I hope in the future there are more companies that try to align incentives with their customers, such that their business practices help custome…

It appears that their customers are particularly defenseless, in contradistinction to other industrial markets.

Re: For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity

#130

Post by aj7 »

minikites wrote: post #96
Vesuvium wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These companies are losing customers. That is never good for business. Eventually, someone will take the matter into his own hand and start making 80s-like tractors, so these companies will lose even more customers. They could do the same, but at this point they lost the trust of their customers, so it will be very hard to gain them back.

Really? Which products are getting more repairable with time? Nobody is bringing back easily repairable washing machines or easily repairable automobiles.

Very true.
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