Another tractor manufacturer out of business?

[WM75Guy]

I don't think they ever produced many tractors, most were just for farm shows and demo by Youtube tractor promoters. They were doing the Tesla model of taking $1,000 deposits based on future delivery. Here is one example of a dealer website showing a Solectrac on the lot. At that retail price point for a 25HP gear tractor, I don't think it would be very competitive. Although it may be a bargain now, just to get it off the lot.

 

[tacticalturnip]

There was a dealer not too far from here that was selling them, alongside his bread and butter LS; I can't imagine he moved many.

 

[3 Horse Ranch]

I don't think they ever produced many tractors, most were just for farm shows and demo by Youtube tractor promoters. They were doing the Tesla model of taking $1,000 deposits based on future delivery. Here is one example of a dealer website showing a Solectrac on the lot. At that retail price point for a 25HP gear tractor, I don't think it would be very competitive. Although it may be a bargain now, just to get it off the lot.

View attachment 855726

At that retail price, they must have been aiming at the Tesla owner, willing to pay premium to go EV.
I can see it working for a suburban hobby farmer to clear snow off his 300 foot driveway and to mow the back 3 acres of his 5 acre parcel, but not much else. Around here, that EV tractor could so about 75% of what I need a small tractor for, but I see no need for a tractor that can't do 100% of what I need a small tractor for.

 

[ptsg]

I can't figure out where they're made. Solectrac seems to be a US company in California. But nothing indicates whether they make their own tractors, make licensed tractors, or are importing them mostly whole. Various government incentives might frown on importing and rebranding.

There appear to be 3 models:
e25H Hydrostatic
e25G Gear
e70N Electric Tractor

I'm not sure the advantage of a hydrostatic for an electric tractor that should naturally be continuously variable speed.

The larger e70N looks interesting, but is expensive. And, I am on a hill where I like tractors to be wide rather than narrow. I don't see any used e70N tractors, and perhaps they never made it to market.

An under powered, or too poor of speed for the PTO sounds like a major problem.

The E25G is for sure just a Farmtrac FT25G that they rebranded to Soletrac. Those are made in India.

Even the E70G looks like a Farmtrac 6075N base, but they ripped the diesel engine and slapped an electric motor and batteries with a crudely made hood. They even kept the mid mount ROPS and the lower link hooks in the 3 pt, which is not at all common in the US.

I doubt Soletrac did much tractor build at all. Only that crude conversion of the 6070EN.

Farmtrac 25G:

Farmtrac 6070EN:

 

[3 Horse Ranch]

All of the dollars they spend are our dollars. The inflation we have felt recently is because they just "made up" more dollars we are on the hook for. All while making the one's they let us keep, have less and less value.

It seems like the Washington philosophy this century is something akin to "We aren't increasing the debt, we still have paper, ink and printing presses."

 

[Rustyiron]

I could see a niche market. SCUT for the 1 acre suburban lot. Gets 1-4 hours of light maintenance work per week. Especially for jurisdictions that mandate noise of fuel

For a little 1ac. lot you could skip the middlemen, aka; batteries and get a 100' extension cord.

 

[Lastkidpicked]

@Rustyiron, do you remember when corded electric lawn mowers were all the rage? You could buy spindles that stuck in the ground so the extension cord didn't get dragged over your flower beds.

"For some additional context here, Ideanomics has both local and federal government grant and loan applications submitted. These range from hundreds of thousands of dollars to the hundreds of millions of dollars, with the latter being something which will require a lot of focused activity to land favorably for Ideanomics. Our CFO, Stephen Johnston, will run through the financials shortly, and Robin will talk more of operations. But first, I want to share 3 examples of work we've done in 2022 to help position us to succeed as the commercial EV market begins to mature."

Thank you for posting that, WM75Guy.

If you'll allow me to get my geek on:

Stephen Heckeroth is the founder of Solectrac and started the idea back in the 1990's. His business idea was, "Electric cars won't work for now because the lead acid batteries are way too heavy. But with tractors, extra weight is a good thing instead of a bad thing."

It was actually Ford/New Holland who first took an interest and paid him to build a Ford/New Holland electric tractor. Heckeroth engineered a system where the battery pack was easily replaceable. You would pull your Ford/New Holland up to the barn, replace your battery pack, and head out again.

Then Ford sold New Holland and the money dried up.

Ideanomics buys Selectrac in the hopes that a big grant pops up.

It doesn't

So Solectrac quietly goes out of business.

It's pretty interesting, really.

 

[Rustyiron]

@Rustyiron, do you remember when corded electric lawn mowers were all the rage? You could buy spindles that stuck in the ground so the extension cord didn't get dragged over...

I remember when people weren't swayed by trendy, unproven gadgetry and could see a scam when it came to separating them from their money. Also no one feared using a gallon of gasoline and "chicken little" the sky is falling nursery tale was just a kids story.

 

[arrow]

I remember when people weren't swayed by trendy, unproven gadgetry and could see a scam when it came to separating them from their money. Also no one feared using a gallon of gasoline and "chicken little" the sky is falling nursery tale was just a kids story.

I think Rusty it was more about an attempt to cash in on a current wave and to be one of the first in an unexplored territory.
The market simply was not ready and I have my doubts it will ever be before some new technology comes up making it obsolete.
To me, EV's are a stop gap measure and really not ready for prime time.They attempted to sell these things using fear then personal economics as motivation as if the planet will be dead in 20 years if we don't buy EV's. We saw where that went.
I recall the hand held calculator was a hundred bucks when it first came out. They sold a lot of them at that price.

 

[EddieWalker]

I've tried to compare Battery Powered Vehicles to Cordless Tools because of how good Cordless Tools have become, but it's just not the same. Cordless Tools come in a variety of abilities, with some being very good, and some that are still too junky to use if you need them to make a living. Being that they are not regulated, or forced on you by the Government, they get better in order to stay in business and make a profit.

Battery Powered Vehicles do not rely on the consumer to provide a better product. Once Government gets involved, the only goal in making a Battery Powered Vehicle is doing what the Government demands of them. Get Government out of the equation, and then they will have to provide a better product, or they will disappear.