Solar-electric Mowers & Tractors
(Page 5 of 8)
August/September 2006
By George DeVault and Charles Higginson
Saukville President Larry DeLeers has been following the growing interest in electric tractors, but has no plans to move in that direction. Electric tractors have potential, he says, but there are just too many unanswered questions.
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“Investors are not rushing to the table with wads of cash,” DeLeers says. “Is the market big enough to enable you realistically to recover your investment costs in a reasonable period of time? I would think one of the big companies would look at this.”
In fact, one of the world’s biggest equipment companies, John Deere, is at least looking at alternatives. Deere already sells electric versions of its Gator utility vehicles for about $8,300 and recently introduced a diesel-electric hybrid Gator for the military. Deere is seriously exploring alternative power sources, including electric motors.
“We have multiple teams in our engineering centers working on this,” says Peter Finamore, manager of research and development at John Deere Advanced Energy Systems in Charlotte, N.C. “This is a complex issue. There are no easy answers. We do not have product plans in this area, but we are doing an awful lot of research and development. Electric vehicles are difficult to justify, because the cost of electric batteries and drives is still quite high. But the cost is coming down.” Meanwhile, of course, fuel prices are going up.
Saukville’s DeLeers says, “You need to determine the various loads put on electric motors and how long the batteries can last under extreme loads. You wouldn’t want to be stopping every half hour to charge the batteries.”
Solar-electric devotee Heckeroth says such comments don’t consider the tremendous differences in efficiency: about 80 percent for batteries, 90 percent for electric motors and less than 20 percent for gas and diesel engines. He points out that in many huge vehicles, internal-combustion engines don’t move the vehicle directly but generate electricity, which powers electric motors that actually do the work. “People think electric vehicles are wimpy little things, but the largest earth-moving machines use engines to power electric wheel-motors,” he says. “Most diesel locomotives are electric vehicles. Nuclear submarines are electric vehicles.”
The Little Cub that Can
In Waterford, Maine, retired mechanical engineer John G. Howe plows, discs, rakes hay, tows up to 100 bales at a time — and even enters tractor pulls — all with an antique International Farmall Cub powered entirely by the sun (see Image Gallery).
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