INTERVIEW ▶▶▶
‘We believe in electric tractors. 100%’
If it was up to the engineers at John Deere, electricity will become the power source of the future. For more efficiency, better traction, lower costs and lower ground pressure. An interview with three experts.
BY RENÉ KOERHUIS & BAS VAN HATTUM F
uture Farming had the chance to exclusively talk to three leading experts at John Deere’s European Technology Innovation Center in Kaiserslautern (Germany) to hear all about the company’s vision on future farming.
Three technology fields “At the Agritechnica exhibition, we showed nine different tech- nology projects in the Future Technology Zone,” says Peter Pickel. “It was the first time ever that John Deere displayed non-com- mercially available machines and equipment to a public audi- ence. And although all of the exhibits concern autonomous vehicles/ robots, our vision of future farming is about a lot more than robots. That vision is centred around three technology fields: 1. Electrification 2. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and 3. Automation and autonomy
The latter basically relates to the journey from automation to au- tonomy. The best example of that is the ‘Joker’, the fully autono- mous electric tractor with articulated steering and a tracked sin- gle axle that we showed. This will however not be a commercial product within the coming decade. Instead, it is our vision incor- porating the three technology fields I mentioned. Many visitors crawled under the Joker to try and find engines, drive lines and batteries, whereas it didn’t have any dedicated powertrain yet. We have several ideas about the power-supply on tractors, which still includes the version with cable and separate energy supply vehicles. Those could also provide energy to other future electric vehicles, like a self-propelled forage harvester. Imagine packing
500 kilowatts in a vehicle the size of a 200 kilowatts tractor! And this is all scalable to 1 megawatt!”
The potential of electrification Nicolai Tarasinski has been involved in the development of elec- trical drive lines and tractors (like the 7530 E Premium from 2008 and the GridCON from 2018) for over 20 years. According to him, electrification offers advantages on three different aspects: pro- ductivity, power ranges and energy supply. “Electrically driven ve- hicles are very efficient when it comes to energy consumption and the weight to power ratio/power density. The drivelines are very easy and fast to control – a requirement for autonomy. Fur- thermore, the absence of emissions and of engine and gear oil is a crucial (environmental) benefit. In the long run, biodiesel will not be the best solution. In 2030 we will see the first bans on combustion engines in cars in Europe and on garden and park machinery in the US. We believe that, in the long run, farmers and contractors will generate more and more electricity themselves, on their premises. All in all, prices for electricity will continue to decrease, and this is an important aspect. While 20 years ago, we really placed our bets on (hydrogen) fuel cells as the (near) future technology, we now believe that fuel cells as well as biogas/meth- ane powered tractors are too limited. You can’t carry enough fuel for a day’s work, and they will not reduce the CO2
-footprint with
the big steps that society wants to see… Power from fuel cells is similar to power from batteries.” Pickel: “We see electrification as a key enabling technology. Elec- tric actuators enable farmers to apply inputs in the most efficient way: at the right amount and in the right place. Take for instance our ExactEmerge seed drill technology. It ensures correct singula- tion and acceleration of the seeds to such a speed that there’s no speed difference with the soil, for correct placement of the seeds.”
▶ FUTURE FARMING | 22 May 2020 13
PHOTO: BAS VAN HATTUM
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