Weather update Electrification
Deere Makes Progress with Electric Tractor
Some tractor manufacturers are focusing on hydrogen or gas and others are going electric. John Deere does that too. At the beginning of this year, it showed a unique concept, in which a tractor without a heavy battery pack can still make long working days.
The autonomous electric trekkers of John Deere stirred up quite a few tongues in April. As one of the few manufacturers, it has been offering an electric tow tractor for years. The RE models have a generator and a plug on the swingarm; you could use it to power a fertilizer spreader. This did not lead to much success, partly because the number of applications remains very limited.
John Deere showed the Sesame at the Sima (2017) in Paris. A 'standard' wheeled tractor with a gigantic battery pack that delivers 130 kW (177 hp). The biggest disadvantage: the battery lasts only 4 hours and charging takes 3 hours. So it is not really practical.
German ICT project
The Sesame Project is part of the German government program IKT für Elektromobilität or: ICT for electromobility. Approximately the entire German machine industry is involved, including various universities and research institutes. John Deere is involved in the GridCon project together with the university in Kaiserslautern. Sesame is part of that.
To solve the battery problem, John Deere and partners went back to the drawing board. What followed was a completely new vehicle, which still somewhat resembles a tractor (minus cabin). Most striking are the huge reel and the crane arm. The tractor is nothing more than a gigantic self-propelled cable reel with three-point hitch and PTO. That looks a bit crazy, but if you think about it, you can't help but conclude that it eliminates a lot of disadvantages.
Electric drag hoses
Diesel engines are extremely practical for agriculture. You can handle them everywhere, you can wear them quite a lot and you don't have to carry a lot of weight with you for a long working day. In addition, there is little downtime to refuel. The electrical system of the electric drag hose puller (GridCon 2) is good for no less than 700 volts direct current (DC), good for a power of over 400 hp (300 kW).
The tractor has been tested in Germany, at the University of Kaiserslautern. At the headland is a self-propelled power station that moves with the tractor and helps to route the cable. The tractor communicates wirelessly with the base station. In 2019, John Deere and the University in Kaiserslautern will continue with the project. The aim is now to develop matching electrical tools.
'Plug-in hybrid'
If you don't see anything in an unmanned electric tractor, you can also contact John Deere. It previously presented a plug-in hybrid tractor. It is a standard tractor with a battery pack with 30 kilowatt hours in the front linkage. If the battery pack is empty, you can quickly switch and charge the empty battery in the yard. John Deere mainly sees benefits for companies that generate their own green electricity. The so-called Battery Boost tractor is also part of the Gricon project.
Niels van der Boom
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