Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price • Hacker News Board

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

#461

Post by defrost » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 1:03 AM UTC

lachlan_gray wrote: post #337

userbinator wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

New Zealand tree farmer Marty T has been posting detailed "back from the dead" tractor / bulldozer / grader / etc. restoration project videos for some time.

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVvO1tKKjRQ

* https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrCvcRxFfyzt3vJmctRaN...

etc. Also hydropower from old washing machine parts and other associated stuff you do on the land videos.

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

#462

Post by throwaway27448 » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 1:05 AM UTC

dghlsakjg wrote: post #425

throwaway27448 wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time imagining that canada has expertise in tractor software. Let's rein our nationalist tendencies in to something that approaches common sense

Canada has the highest percentage of people with higher education. There's no qualifier for that sentence. Canada is the only country on earth where a majority of people over 25 have tertiary education. It also has a massive agricultural sector. You know how Canada is known as an oil and gas powerhouse? Agriculture is more than double the size of o+g in Canada. I think the most well educated country on earth, with a…

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

#463

Post by vl » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 1:07 AM UTC

mvkel wrote: post #460

Reduce, reuse, recycle. Before buying new, aren't there enough tractors from the 60s, 70s, 80s that are still salvageable? The general aviation world has Cessna 172s from the 50s still going strong; why buy new?

These tractors are not new, they are rebuilt.

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

#464

Post by jcgrillo » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 1:09 AM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #8

Wish they sold something in the compact utility segment. 40-60hpish. I'd love an affordable Canadian made tractor for property maintenance / smaller farms. (Though these days I've love something electric. I don't need long run time, I'm not doing row crops. Just market gardening and property maintenance stuff. All the electric stuff I see out there is aiming up at the high end and for autonomy / "smart" tractor stuff…

I have a Kubota L3010 HST (late '90s-early '00s) and it's fantastic. Fuel efficient, quiet, comfortable, minimal electronics, pretty easy to work on. It's a little underpowered (30hp/24 pto hp), but not egregiously. It'll run a 9" post auger or chip 6" logs if you feed them slowly enough. I'll have to split it this summer, unfortunately, it's developing a hydraulic leak from the clutch housing which almost certainly means the front driveshaft seal is failing.

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

#465

Post by lettergram » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 1:09 AM UTC

You can get a kubota M5-111 with a closed cab for $70k-100k, cheaper than these. Plus zero percent financing though then for 5-7 years. Well built and a comparable class in terms of weight and horse power.

People aren’t buying them for price, but the first sentence discusses it as if it’s relevant.

My assumption are farmers are trying to skirt the eco rules for vehicles in some way. Which by the way is insanely annoying and has caused issues for all the farmers I know at one point or another. Worse, you can’t fix the ecosystems on your own so you have to get them serviced costing quite a bit and importantly putting your tractor out of commission for a while. It’s why older tractors have a premium

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

#466

Post by defrost » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 1:09 AM UTC

jfengel wrote: post #307

kube-system wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheap ones too -- aliexpress has them. But there's more to agtech than driving a tractor around, a lot of what these big integrated systems do (at the high end) is very data driven -- determining where and how to plant, irrigate, fertilize, etc. There's a lot of integration work beyond just making the tractor drive.

What kind of sensors do those cheap kits come with? A tractor is a big thing to have rolling around unsupervised. I would want a lot of safeguards. Blindly going from one GPS point to another sounds like a nightmare.

Here you go, local grain farmer (4,500 hectares, barley, grains) reviews a fully automated driverless swarm bot in boom spray configuration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljEKN7CsjnM

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

#467

Post by horsawlarway » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 1:10 AM UTC

throwaway85825 wrote: post #391

rootusrootus wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The mandate is for rear visibility Specifically, 10 feet by 20 feet directly behind the vehicle. I'm actually curious how this could be achieved with only mirrors. That's a pretty big swath for anything with a viewpoint where the driver is sitting. > My vehicle has a backup camera with a screen Early implementations just used a screen in the rearview mirror. No need for any kind of infotainment screen.

In rear view mirror display is mostly just on GM products.

my 2011 F150 has a rear view mirror backup display, and it's quite nice.

It's there when the truck is in reverse and otherwise just a normal mirror.

Early 2010s actually seems like a sweet spot for a lot of automotive tech - it's decent enough, but "mobile" wasn't really a thing yet, and bandwidth was expensive, so there's no assumption that everything should be an app phoning home yet (iPhone was still brand new).

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

#468

Post by throwaway27448 » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 1:11 AM UTC

GlacierFox wrote: post #374

throwaway27448 wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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What's going on here? You're responding like an unhinged AI.

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

#469

Post by jp0d » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 1:13 AM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #416

I wonder how sustainable the business model is. Eventually, you saturate the market with your tractors, and if they work as advertised, they are owned and maintained for decades. A lot of people are out there farming with 60-80 year old tractors. I would suspect most of the OEM parts that need replacing are where most wear and tear is happening (the engine). Those parts come from Cummins, not this startup. In the mea…

> maximize shareholder dividends

This is the whole reason why middle class is dying and power and wealth are being consolidated amongst the rich.

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

#470

Post by j45 » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 1:18 AM UTC

Hasz wrote: post #20

I think this is a reaction to the incredibly locked down ecosystem that most of these mfgs are pushing. However, the tech exists for a reason and is not inherently bad, the issue is the lock-in, the lack of choice and interoperability. IMO, there is plenty of space for an OEM who can play nice with others, offer an open (and vibrant ecosystem), and keep users coming back by choice, not by lock-in.

Whom tech benefits is worth keeping in mind.

Tech for improvement for customers vs tech for moats/enshittification, especially when imposed by one side on the other.

The latter is never very good.