Electric excavators are there, as they are low duty cycle, see sibling comments for details, but high load percent for long time is a killer for battery tech.
I could imagine tethered tractors with power line tensioned in the air, but the grid building cost will be quite high for intermittent usage. Only some land usages and plot shapes would work economically.
the battery in a tesla would run a medium tractor for less than an hour. The tesla can produce more power - but soon it is up to speed and so making a lot less. Tractors are expected to produce their full rated power for 10 hours without stopping.
A tractor does actual work like pulling an implement like a plow or spinning the PTO to power a machine like a wood splitter or well drill.
Airplane engines are rebuilt every 5,000ish miles because they’re constantly running at like 50% load, it’s much harder on the engine than moving a car, a tractor is very similar.
Car engines do very little work once you’re up to speed, it only takes a fraction of the max power available to keep the car moving. This is why EVs are possible.
Running a tractor engine under load requires a lot of energy, battery density isn’t quite there yet, diesel has around 50x more energy by weight than a battery.
Off by an order of magnitude. Average TBO (which airplane engines routinely exceed if they don’t rust out) is 2,000 hours assuming piston, or about 300,000 miles for a Piper Arrow at cruise speed.
Electric excavators are there, as they are low duty cycle, see sibling comments for details, but high load percent for long time is a killer for battery tech.
I could imagine tethered tractors with power line tensioned in the air, but the grid building cost will be quite high for intermittent usage. Only some land usages and plot shapes would work economically.
the battery in a tesla would run a medium tractor for less than an hour. The tesla can produce more power - but soon it is up to speed and so making a lot less. Tractors are expected to produce their full rated power for 10 hours without stopping.
A tractor does actual work like pulling an implement like a plow or spinning the PTO to power a machine like a wood splitter or well drill.
Airplane engines are rebuilt every 5,000ish miles because they’re constantly running at like 50% load, it’s much harder on the engine than moving a car, a tractor is very similar.
Car engines do very little work once you’re up to speed, it only takes a fraction of the max power available to keep the car moving. This is why EVs are possible.
Running a tractor engine under load requires a lot of energy, battery density isn’t quite there yet, diesel has around 50x more energy by weight than a battery.
Off by an order of magnitude. Average TBO (which airplane engines routinely exceed if they don’t rust out) is 2,000 hours assuming piston, or about 300,000 miles for a Piper Arrow at cruise speed.
My apologies, I forgot that airplane engines are tracked by running time and not miles!