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Re:New two-stroke engine design could help keep internal com... by lizknope on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @08:08AM (#23310081)
I have driven through parts of the western US where it is 100 miles to the next gas/petrol station. There are farms and ranches in these areas but they are connected to the electrical grid with wires. It seems like having an electric tractor and charging at the farm would be more convenient than transporting hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel from 100 miles away.
Re:New two-stroke engine design could help keep internal com... by Vvector on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @08:27AM (#23310243)
Tractors are bursty. They are heavily used at planting and harvesting. Farmers can't spend long periods of time recharging in the middle of planting season. And it would be too expensive to buy 12 hours of battery capacity for a couple times a year.

Gas still wins with a short refuel time.

Re:New two-stroke engine design could help keep internal com... by supportlocal4h on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @09:51AM (#23311087)
Actually, batteries win on refuel time. Swapping batteries is much faster than filling a tank. Gas wins on meantime between refuels and in other categories. Farmers can and happily will spend super long periods of time recharging if they can operate during the recharge.

My own initial experiences have been mixed. Overall advantage still goes to gas. But I think we're very close to getting this battery thing figured out. Just a few years away. When we look back it will seem like it happened overnight.

Re:New two-stroke engine design could help keep internal com... by gambiting on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @10:47AM (#23311818)
>>Actually, batteries win on refuel time. Swapping batteries is much faster than filling a tank

By that logic, you could say that there is absolutely no difference, because if you can imagine a car where the battery can be swapped, you should be able to imagine a car where the entire fuel tank is swapped. A tractor arrives at a station, and instead of filling up 500 litres of diesel, the entire tank is simply replaced with a full one. It wins again since fuel tanks are cheap - they are just metal and plastic after all, you can have several just sitting there, full or empty.

The fact that no one has done it yet suggests that this really isn't an issue - commercial diesel filling stations usually run at much higher pressure than your regular pumps, a truck/tractor tank fills in minutes because of a much higher flow rate.

Re:New two-stroke engine design could help keep internal com... by bananabreakfast on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @02:26PM (#23314671)
That is very silly and disingenuous argument to make and a total straw man.

Swapping gas tanks provides no advantage and you conveniently ignore the whole point of the batteries which is that you don't need any fuel infrastructure to fill your tanks!

Re:New two-stroke engine design could help keep internal com... by Vvector on Thursday May 28, 2020 @10:56AM (#23338018)
> you don't need any fuel infrastructure to fill your tanks!

A fuel infrastructure costs magnitudes less than just one battery pack. You just need a large tank and pump.

Re:New two-stroke engine design could help keep internal com... by xyzzyz on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @01:43PM (#23314155)
Swapping 2000 lbs+ of batteries is faster than filling tank? When is the last time you hauled thousands of pounds? It ain’t fast, let me tell you that.
Re:New two-stroke engine design could help keep internal com... by supportlocal4h on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @09:41PM (#23318550)
Perhaps you've never seen a 1500 lbs steer get its hooves trimmed. Or a 1 ton bail get loaded and unloaded in seconds. Or somebody change the tire on a tractor.

Farmers have machines and equipment for almost everything. Swapping out a flat pack? POC

Re:New two-stroke engine design could help keep internal com... by tengbretson on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @01:20PM (#23313836)
> Actually, batteries win on refuel time. Swapping batteries is much faster than filling a tank.

Swapping batteries implies either having multiple batteries, which adds to you costs significantly, or it implies adding yet another proprietary service company putting the screws to you in your supply chain.

Re:New two-stroke engine design could help keep internal com... by supportlocal4h on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @09:50PM (#23318593)
As I wrote, I still give gas the overall edge right now. But not by a wide margin, and that margin is dwindling.

For instance, don't forget the fuel suppliers, tank inspectors, etc, in the supply chain on the other side.

I was just commenting on the point of refuel time.

Re:New two-stroke engine design could help keep internal com... by brutt on Wednesday May 27, 2020 @06:04AM (#23321255)
By limiting charging to 80%, battery will degrade less. Even farmers need to eat and pee. Battery can be charged to 80% in 20 minutes.

Also, it's possible to use extended swapable batteries for such cases.

Re:New two-stroke engine design could help keep internal com... by bluGill on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @09:37AM (#23310919)
Tractors use a lot of horsepower constantly. Cars are burst. Put the pedal to the floor on a Tesla and you are up to the speed limit in seconds at which time you back off. Take your Tesla to an infinite straight track and put the pedal to the floor and the battery will be dead in a few minutes. (though probably something else will break first)
Re:New two-stroke engine design could help keep internal com... by jacquesm on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @10:01AM (#23311201)
A tractor will go through fuel faster than you can imagine if you've never worked with one. Plowing a field or running some powered attachment while you have the creeper gears engaged will cause a nice little vortex in your fuel tank.