All-electric Bobcat compact track loader

[neilkingent]

Sorry, wind and solar are not going to solve our energy problems.

 

[fishhead]

No they won't but they can be an important part, plus things like tidal or even Nuclear. Too, Mass storage technologies are improving and there are more and more ways to use less energy without suffering- for example Cold Climate heat pumps. Whether you believe in Climate science or not its dumb to waste energy and even petroleum.

Back to tractors - the earlier comment about diesel electric is spot on - why aren't we seeing some type of hybrids? Seems like they could have some of the advantages you get from electric - no exhaust in closed spaces, peak torque at ultra low rpm etc with the advantages of liquid fuels- longer running time/ flexibility in use

 

[bsekf]

Neil, you are 100% correct. They will exacerbate the problems.

Until Inda and China get on board reducing pollution, we are simply adding expense to our energy costs.

The AOC's in our government don't have a clue and don't care how much energy costs. They are simply driving us further into debt.

If they were serious they would be pushing nuclear.

Bill

 

[BigBlue1]

^^^ That.

 

[Joe Batt]

The most interesting thing to me about this is the choice of electric actuators over hydraulic cylinders for the loader portion. ...
Meanwhile, i have a 50hp (capable) electric motor/controller/charger setup from an old electric car i parted out that was made by a failed EV startup in the early 90s. I also have a small skid steer with a ****ty engine. I've recently been thinking about trying to combine the two. But that would be just hooking an electric motor up to the existing tandem hydraulic pumps.

I completely agree. The electric->hydraulic pressure step needs to be more efficient. I just googled "solid state hydraulic pump" and saw this Solid-State Pumps - Kinetic Ceramics I thikn something like that will be required to make the step from diesel to EV utility tractors.

 

[newbury]

No they won't but they can be an important part, plus things like tidal or even Nuclear. Too, Mass storage technologies are improving and there are more and more ways to use less energy without suffering- for example Cold Climate heat pumps. Whether you believe in Climate science or not its dumb to waste energy and even petroleum.

Back to tractors - the earlier comment about diesel electric is spot on - why aren't we seeing some type of hybrids? Seems like they could have some of the advantages you get from electric - no exhaust in closed spaces, peak torque at ultra low rpm etc with the advantages of liquid fuels- longer running time/ flexibility in use

Most "tractors" are not the ideal tool for closed spaces. Closed places usually have a flat floor and other machines are better used, such as forklifts, and they are often electric.

 

[ddbackhoe]

Neil, you are 100% correct. They will exacerbate the problems.

Until Inda and China get on board reducing pollution, we are simply adding expense to our energy costs.

The AOC's in our government don't have a clue and don't care how much energy costs. They are simply driving us further into debt.

If they were serious they would be pushing nuclear.

Bill

This is where a huge part of the problem lies….get rid of coal, go natural gas..wait, no natural gas we need wind and solar, wait we have too many users and brown/black outs are a certainty. Let’s go back to nuclear, uhoh no place to store waste. Hydro, thats the ticket…uhoh nobody left to check the dams.
So yeah, why not put our transportation, construction and manufacturing all on electric. Makes perfect sense, until the lights go out.

 

[barts]

All ranting about politics aside, the future of energy distribution is electricity. Our new place has a heat pump rather than burning propane, with wood stoves in case of power failure. We have a old diesel truck - but the new sedan is a Tesla. The chainsaw is an older gas model, but perhaps the next one will be electric. An electric subcompact tractor could be quite practical, but is currently too expensive - but that will change. Renewables - hydro, geothermal, solar, wind - comprise an increasing part of the nation's and the world's energy sources. We cannot continue to use fossil fuels forever - climate, pollution and supply all prevent their long term use.

When I was first working as an engineer in the mid 80s, I developed factory automation systems w/ robots. Some robots were electric-hydraulic, but that was the old-school stuff. The newer all-electric systems were quiet, clean and very powerful, and were essentially maintenance free aside from cleaning air filters in the cabinets.

I wonder what an all-electric compact tractor will look like twenty years from now.

- Bart

 

[neilkingent]

cool tractors, but without a FEL not really useful to me. I could have bought a skid steer, but a tractor with a FEL and backhoe made more sense to me. Technological advancement is all well and good, but if you don't need it, it's a waste of money.

 

[bnold]

And, speaking of price. The enviro green group don't care about the price, they'll never buy one. The price of a new tractor is already in the stratosphere. Only a moron would buy a $100K electric car to replace a comparative $50K gasoline car and tractors will be worse. I just don't believe there will be a "used" market for electric vehicles.

The only people who are buying electric vehicles are the green inviro morons or those with more money than brains.

Let’s see, used Tesla model 3s are selling for more $$ than new due to months long wait list.

Tesla model 3 less than $50k new for standard model.

I have diesel SUV, diesel truck, diesel tractors, gas toys, and EV commuter.

My 216 mile commute costs me less than $2.50/day in power today. No fuel station stops, 1st scheduled maintenance in 2 years. Also, just fun as heck to drive.

Each power plant has their place for me. Electric, diesel, gas, propane… hardly an ‘Enviro Moron’.

 

[neilkingent]

That $2.50 a day doesn't enclude the cost of another vehicle that you have to have when you need to go somewhere. My wife could easily drive an EV to work and back. But she drives to Nebraska to visit her aging father regularly and needs 4x4 when she gets there.

 

[bnold]

Had friends in from out of town over Christmas, trip was ~3,000miles round trip. Their EV didn’t mind the trip, her aging bladder needing emptying more than the EV needed to charge.

All of the Tesla models have AWD options, but are far from an ‘off road vehicle’. If your wife needs true 4x4 for some rock crawling, mud bogging, or high clearance as part of her trip then obviously a different vehicle currently fits the bill. Or if range isn’t currently supported by chargers on the route, of course.

The $2.50/ day is a pure ‘fuel cost’, no depreciation or maintenance (basically tires)

I could run the comparison to my Ram 3500 at quite literally twice the purchase cost of the commuter EV. Operation of that beast beyond its hauling and towing duties for communing would be insanely expensive (~$45/day on just fuel, and the list of maintenance and regular wear components on that goat is long, I should know, on my 4th diesel Ram).

Part of the difficulties of comparisons is the subjective component of ‘equivalent commuter car’. My comparative vehicle would probably be a 3 series BMW or similar. I wouldn’t compare to a Honda Civic or a Hyundai Tiberon to my current commuter. IE purchase price would probably align and not be a significant component in the math.

 

[DonaldP]

I mean, if still needing to 3-4x the size and 10-30x the cost of a comparable hydraulic cylinder are bugs than i would say they have not really been figured out yet. It would be much simpler to use a large electric actuator for something like a dump truck/trailer and even there it is not compelling. A skid steer's loader undergoes a lot of very high dynamic forces and you have to 'overbuild' the actuator for the loads it will actually exert outward, just to have it deal with the forces it will have to absorb or transfer inward. It's doable, but there are obvious reasons why noone does it.

That is so true… I believe there has to be either something on the horizon which is a totally different design for electrical actuators. I can’t believe Bobcat would risk their name for site productivity on existing poor energy transfer current day actuators.
I get 2 hours to the gallon on my L3560. Now that’s pretty reasonable compared to a lawn tractor… and the tractor does literally 25?x the work. So we are swapping 2 hours to the gal for an additional $25 to $30,000 in cost to gain what specifically? I believe it will be a long time before the grid is powered 100% by solar…. But I’m not a scientist.

 

[3 Horse Ranch]

plus things like tidal or even Nuclear.

Oh yeah, I can see new nuke plants being built in the U.S, right after pigs fly. Tidal will harm fish and whales and other marine life Nuke plant, if they are ever built produce their own kind of environmental problem with a half life on spent fuel rods measured in the thousands of years. So far I haven't heard one believable plan to power everything electrically, especially since we are are already over taxing the electrical grid on occasion without every household plugging in a high draw battery charger every night.

 

[mikester]

Simple.

New revenue streams for businesses. You need to think no further than this. Bobcat isnt in it to save the planet...they want to be a leader in this new market segment.

I do believe there is a place for electric construction equipment...it is just mostly indoors.

I think the main customers for these units will be government agencies who buy them for the feel good factor. Four hour daily work time will outlast most civil service requirements. I'm sure they will cost twice as much as a fossil fuel unit and last half as long. Win-win-win scenario.

 

[metalbender]

Government agencies are people funded. No such thing as gov funded. Sounds great, the gov is doing their part acquiring EV's, reducing the carbon footprint. People pay, coal generated power charges the EV's. Where's the upside?

 

[bsekf]

A Tesla 3 will not compare to our daily driver, a Lexus RX350. I don't want a funny car. Elect. will work for a commuter for 100 miles a day, as long as you don't get runover or into by a Dodge Ram or Ford F250.

When there are enough elect cars the government will institute a mileage tax....remember, those elect cars don't pay gasoline road tax, they don't help maintain the roads. THAT WILL CHANGE New cars are already keeping track of your miles driven, so it will be easy for the IRS to collect. It is obvious the government wants to drive us to elect everything. I guess they will address the grid meltdown when it happens.

A wind turbine designer wrote" after you factor in the building and disposal, the turbines I build will never pay for themselves in electricity produced". I forgot the eagles and endangered birds they kill every year! OOPS, not supposed to talk about that.

Bill

 

[Jchonline]

Elect. will work for a commuter for 100 miles a day,

Bill

Thats just the thing. When you look at all of the variables if you cant charge at work it just might not. If most of those 100 miles are highway at 60 mph+ you loose 30% or more battery use. If they are in cold or hot weather requiring the Heater or AC to be running...you loose more battery use. If you need to run an errand 20 miles out of the way after work...will you have the juice?

What about those that live in apartments or have limited parking available...how do they charge? Wake up 2 hours early in the AM to get to a L3 charger and pay more than gas/diesel per mile to charge it up? Or they can just charge at work...but some people wont have chargers at work.

Still lots of questions/challenges before this becomes main stream.

To make it work (at least in US) we need to over double the current grid capacity..and we need a charger everywhere a car can be parked.

 

[BigBlue1]

All those are real issues to contend with. The problem is, since there is not enough organic market demand to drive/initiate the build-out of the infrastructure required to address those issues then what will happen is the government will force the vehicles mainstream and then "have to" find ways to fund the solutions/infrastructure with taxpayer money. We'll all end up paying for something that isn't enticing enough on its own for us to want it. The only real 'demand' for the class of products is coming from the "we have to do it for the planet" mindset that, itself, is partially driven by misleading info.

 

[deezler]

Gosh, (some of) you guys are overreacting like crazy here.

I didn't read every single comment so far, but didn't see anyone mention the huge advantage for these electric units is working indoors. You know, where you don't want humans to breathe the emissions.

But in general, if the performance (power, run-time, reliability, recharge time) isn't sufficient to meet the needs of the industry, these won't catch on. If it is sufficient, well then great! Calm down, folks. AOC is not about to somehow magically mandate that you give up your diesel skid steer.