41–50 of 160 posts
It seems like a farm could increase their productivity by letting these run autonomously at night and continuing to use human drivers with their old equipment during the day.
Once 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…
Progress yes, but at a peak of 70hp it won't be plowing much more than a hobby garden. Autonomous operation is all well and good but expect resistance. Look at how many farmers are injured by tractor equipment. They will rightly fear driverless tractors.
Before electric motors, factories used to have a single giant coal engine that used pulleys and crankshafts to distribute that power all across the factory. When electric motors became available, they replaced that single giant coal engine with a single giant electric motor. They got their lunch eaten by people who built new factories with electric motors at every station, distributing the power using wire. These tra…
5 50hp tractors are in no way cheaper than one 250. Soooo many more duplicated systems and stuff to maintain and repair. With the fleet of small tractors you have like 4x the number of hours tied up in service.
And before anyone say "hurr durr muh electric" I would advice you to google up some small machine manuals, look at the service intervals and see what you'll be doing the most of. Electric motors don't mean you can throw out your grease gun. The bulk of the hours on heavy equipment maintenance are spend on the business ends of the machine that take the abuse, attachments and drive-train, not engine/trans.
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Yes. I've got a 28HP Kubota L-series, and have been contemplating upgrading to an M-series, but even 46 would probably set us for a good while and lots of farmers around here still find use for tractors 50+ years old that are smaller than that. Yes there are huge JDs beyond that, and the M-series tops out at 168 HP, but 70 HP still seems way beyond "hobby" level and I'm honestly and genuinely surprised to see it call…
I think it depends on the kind of crops grown. Combines, grain bins, harvesters etc are a whole diff ball game when it comes to grain or corn on 1000+ acres for commodity crop farms
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0: https://www.usfarmdata.com/percentage-of-small-medium-and-la...
1: https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2016/Small...
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It would be perfect if the autonomy worked well in the dark, then it could just work at night and then charge during the day.
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.
+ 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…
Starlink might offer a bit of disruption there, particularly once its approved for mobile usage. They might ultimately have an opportunity to offer plans/terminals specifically for situations like this too, dedicated application devices that need small amounts of bandwidth in isolated areas.
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A modern engine will run at full hp for extended periods, hundreds of hours. In many ways, lower power settings at lower rpms can be harder on engines than running flat out. In a family car, the cooling system would drop the ball long before anything as substantial as a head gasket. It would overheat long before any actual damage.
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.
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.
Once 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…
It’s not enough to exist. You actually have to perform at least comparably, which DDG doesn’t unfortunately.
+ 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…
Nice! Are they going to spread out into other areas? Drilling rigs? Muckers? Something to replace the Sandvik rigs and fully automate drilling and blasting would be cool. They are already partially automated (pattern, depth) but require a human to operate. I think getting humans out of mines should reduce insurance costs and health risks.
https://www.foodandfarmingtechnology.com/news/autonomous-veh...
Also big-ass mining trucks:
https://techacute.com/zyfra-huawei-5g-test-autonomous-mining...