Optional cab can be added on to the Sesam 2 (aka GridCON 2)

Preface.  In both my books Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy & When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation, I write that since most “renewables” generate electricity (i.e. wind, solar, nuclear, hydropower, compressed air energy storage, batteries, geothermal, fusion, etc), then clearly what most needs electrification are agricultural vehicles and equipment to create the fuel that powers us.

John Deere to the rescue. They’ve created an electric tractor that can till soil for cultivation (Vincent 2022). The John Deere Sesam 2 (also known as GridCON 2) is an 8.5 metric ton automated electric tractor with 1,000 kWh of energy storage and 500 kW (680 hp) of power. It comes with a 1-kilometer-long cable (max 2.5 kV/300 kW) which rolls on and off automatically. The electric power unit delivers 100 kW (136 HP) to the wheels, and 200 kW (272 HP) to power additional machinery.  It is driven to the field with a wireless remote control and then the farmer can use a computer to tell the tractor what to do and which paths to take.

The next version, the 8R, will have a power line of 3,000 meters, 8 kV, 1000 kW and be able to operate in swarms. What’s that?  See this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzl3wkkKtoA).

So you ask, why have five or more 3,280 feet of cables strung between half a dozen tractors that could get snarled and quite heavy as well?  It’s because batteries would be far too heavy, permanently compressing soil and reducing crop production (some other models of these electric tractors use treads like tanks do to spread the weight out).

Heavy batteries weigh enough to compact soil and reduce future harvests. With their weight problem, electric tractors very well could end up stuck in the mud.  Diesel farm equipment is already compacting soils in some areas that yields are reduced by over 60%, and even permanently (McGarry and Sharp 2003; Drewry et al. 2008; Sidhu and Duiker 2006; Håkansson and Lipiec 2000). A farm tractor can weigh 60,000 pounds, compacting the soil and making it hard for roots to get water and air. That is 30 times more weight than a draught horse, This is especially causing erosion on the half of America’s cropland where corn and soybeans are grown because the rows are so wide that heavy harvesting equipment that compacts and pulverizes soil into a fine powder that is more easily eroded and blown or washed away (RCN 2011; Mathews 2014).

Worldwide, researchers estimate that combine harvesters may be damaging 20% of the land used to grow crops they’ve grown so heavy — about 36,000 kg (79,000 pounds) in 2020 versus just 4,000 kg (8,800 pounds) back in 1958. Compaction makes it hard for plants to grow roots, draw up nutrients, and makes land more likely to flood, harming productivity for decades (Briggs 2022, Kelly 2022).

The 8R uses six pairs of AI stereo cameras, with help from computers, data gathering, and satellite imagery.  Just one of the tractors, and remember, it’s proposed that many be used at once, is estimated to cost over $600,000 and is designed for big farms, which will provide the electricity themselves with solar, wind, and manure digesters (Estes 2022).

Since there will be times when the AI is confounded and stops until told what to do, images will be sent to a call center and an app will alert the farmer who can view the images and decide what to do (Vincent 2022).

But don’t hold your breath, John Deere says that their swarm tractor technology will not be produced for several years due to hurdles such as infrastructure, farm layouts, energy provider billing models, and laws and regulations.

John Deere Autonomous battery electric tractor in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHnMPIOqzTE

But there are many obstacles to overcome:

1. The batteries, even though smaller due to the cables, would still be so heavy that they could compact the soil and reduce future crop production
2. The batteries would need to spend so much time recharging that crops might not be planted or harvested in the narrow window of time available
3. Battery electric tractors/harvesters are prohibitively expensive
4. They would only last as long as natural gas (NG) did, since once NG runs out the electric grid will come down in most places most of the time, since other forms of energy storage — compressed air, battery, and hydropower don’t scale up or even exist in many regions.
5. Mining uses 10% of world energy (TWC 2020). Electric tractors require the mining of rare earth, platinum and other scarce metals at a time when petroleum is declining (world oil production peaked in 2018). Mining is also the most polluting industry on earth, destroying ecosystems, biodiversity, and rainforests, potentially affects 50 million square kilometers, 37% of Earth’s land (minus Antarctica) (Kleijn et al. 2011; PEBI 2016; Hickel 2019; Sonter et al. 2020; Pitron 2020).
6. Declining energy will also make the precision needed to make microchips, computers, tractors and more for electric tractors out of reach (Winchester 2018). So at a time when we need to simplify and consume less, electric tractors that only the largest industrial farms can afford rather than many many small organic family farms is the wrong direction.
7. If the electricity comes from the electric grid, is there enough power out in the country? Most power generation and heavy duty transmission lines are near cities, with very few thin electric wires extending out into the country
8. If the power is generated at the farm with solar, wind turbines, and manure digesters, how much will that cost, how much land will that take, and how long will it take to charge the tractor batteries?

Most telling of all are the farmers comments:

1. I hope we can produce enough natural gas to generate the electricity to charge that thing!
2. you want to go with no fuel just get a good team of horses
3. If farmers don’t see this as a threat, they probably didn’t see massive corporate farms as a threat either.
4. If I pay cash for it, am I allowed to put air in the tires or do I need to have it towed to the dealer?
5. A couple of things here: who checks the seed depth when planting? How many years do the batteries last? What do replacements cost?
6. How many hours are the batteries good for?
7. I want to see it working steep ground, and 25% tire wear left
8. Would’ve liked to see how fast it could go with the tillage gear working as at the speed it was going it would take all year to work up 1 big cropping farm.
9. Wow that thing moves as fast as a snail
10. I’d like to see how fast that electric meter is spinning when its charging
11. Case international had a similar thing back in 2016 but it was just a tractor with no cab but it was all autonomous. I’m pretty sure it became of nothing, cuz never heard about after its debut.
12. You can’t get parts for equipment now can you imagine how difficult it’s gonna be for parts from this thing and then on top of it really Long way to go with the technology
13. So if it hits a rock or root that binds while plowing does it continue to tear the disks and plow up or does it stop? Is it going to tell you when you break a plow point, or a mold board?
14. Some implements need to run at speeds of 10-13 mph for proper tillage.
15. Bad enough that rare earths from around the planet are stolen to create such “wonderful” advancement. Why not try farming small; that might provide work and health and wellbeing for all. Shit, I forgot… that doesn’t matter so long as there’s profit to be made!
16. I want to see it travel more the 3 mph with a 50 ft chisel. Our even move
17. what happens when your sprayer has a blocked nozzle ??
18. all this electric powered vehicle stuff is just awesome and absolutely needed but it will be forever before a decent, reliable, relatively cheap and environmentally safe battery(s) are invented. All the electric vehicles being built now are built with little regard to the cost of replacement battery(s) and impact on the environment before and after the batteries are used up. And there are probably dead electric vehicle batteries already piling up somewhere on the planet now.
19. Imagine watching a rain storm roll in waiting for this slow ass thing crawl over 7 acres/hour lol
20. Maybe it can tow a diesel generator around to charge it while it works 😉 The supposed efficiency of an electric motor simply ignores that fact that another engine somewhere was working to charge the battery so it is at least 50% inefficient right off the bat.
21. The last thing I want is to be in a glass cab that low to the ground around flying rocks and idiot drivers while moving that from field to field
22. Definitely a moving target for the pissed off farm employees that lost their jobs lol
23. Why didn’t they show it turning at the end of the row?
24. How long before one has a program glitch and it takes out half a mile of fence?
25. Sure would love to see this thing stop and change a plow point or shear bolt after hitting a rock or clean out a sprayer nozzle when one stops up or stop and clean seed tubes and meters out when any of that happens while planting and we all know the problems never end when planting, problems that a person needs to address.
26. If it cost 20K to replace the battery in a Tesla, what is it going to cost in this?
27. The snow would be falling before this slow-poke tractor finished spring work. There is a reason why the don’t show the tractor driving at the normal speeds of diesel tractors… Such speeds would suck the batteries dead before it could make one round around a 100 acre field.
28. The more complicated something is, the more maintenance it requires and more things to break.
29. Lets say we are using an average of 200kw (270hp) for 12 hours in order to till our land, thats 200,000watts multiplied by 12 hours, that results in a total of 2,400 kilowatt hours of battery capacity in order to last the whole time, the largest battery on an electric car in production right now is 100kwh, so unless it is 24 times the capacity of that then the battery will not last, this is assuming 100% efficiency with the electric motors and no energy lost through the tyres, drivetrain or through rolling resistance, so how is this viable unless the battery is really that big, but then you get to seeding or tillage when you need to run 24 hours a day, then what?
30. I’m glad I’m old and will die soon because people think electric vehicles are the way to save our planet, but where does electricity come from? Coal, gas, and nuclear energy. Sounds like we are trading one “evil” for another and solving absolutely nothing.
31. When the day arrives that electricity is cheaper than fossil fuels, only then will this be a noteworthy development. Until that time, it is a waste of money.
32. What’s the point if it still has to be controlled by a person?
33. It only does two passes and needs to be recharged? lol. Do you have a Cat generator to charge it on the fly?
34. Seriously, you are 25 miles from your shop working in the field. Your tractor needs charging. I guess you bring out your 50kw diesel generator out to change it all night. Am I missing something here?
35. No emissions locally despite monstrous diesel generator at edge of field?
36. Unless JD allows right-to-repair then forget it.
37. Seems like a cool idea… but isn’t the whole value of a tractor is that its versatile and can be used for many applications? seems like a very limited set of applications and probably comes with a steeper price
38. Isn’t it bad enough buying a piece of equipment and you have to have a technician come out and trouble shoot the thing with patented program just to find out what sensor out of 200 might have failed? Basically you never own the damn thing because you will always be tethered to the parent company
39. When it breaks down starts on fire you lost that field for good. The fire will never go out. Your land will be toxic.
40. Great idea until it wrecks itself, wrecks a fence, gets stuck in a ditch, runs onto a road, or kills someone.
41. It won’t even plough a 50 acre field before it needs charging
42. What if someone computer hacks this thing. Could do a lot of damage.
43. Good lord. Why??? Do you know how much electricity it’s gonna take to charge that thing overnight or between jobs. And I guarantee you the machine costs at least $200,000.
44. Looks extremely impractical and an environmental disaster!
45. If you had the money it took to buy that you could retire and not farm!
46. That’s for them 3-piece suit farmers like bill gates
47. Electric motors are amazing for torque BUT Electric vehicles are not clean. Batteries raw materials are mined in Africa, Chile and China and that’s just the beginning. Say ten years down the line the battery will of at least dropped 25% in capacity or worse. That’s a new battery and costs as much as a new unit. This is far from a green pursuit.
48. Looks real heavy and has no brain to see a waterway or a wet spot so will go ahead and get stuck any way and really bury itself in and keep going until it is out of power. Would only be used on large farms where no hills and can go for a long time. Would be worthless if you had to charge it for more than 15 minutes during harvest or planting season. That’s about how long it takes to fuel and reload seed now. Would hate to shut down for hours just to recharge. Especially when the rain is coming in the next day and you have to finish before it.
49. electric cars, trucks, and tractors have the same or more of a foot print then gas or diesel
50. pulling an 80 foot drill @ 3000acres you would need about 12 electric tractors — it doesn’t make financial sense
51. You thought tangled wrapped up hydraulic hoses is bad, Wait until you have high electricity cables wrapped up…basically a scaled up garden tiller with an extension cord you have to drag around

Alice Friedemann  www.energyskeptic.com  Author of Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy; When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels, & “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”.  Women in ecology  Podcasts: WGBH, Planet: Critical, Crazy Town, Collapse Chronicles, Derrick Jensen, Practical Prepping, Kunstler 253 &278, Peak Prosperity,  Index of best energyskeptic posts

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