Kubota Electric Tractor Survey

[DustyRusty]

A friend sent this to me just last week......

Finally, a little bit of common sense into this argument!

Depending on how and when you count, Japan's Toyota is the world's largest automaker. According to Wheels, Toyota and Volkswagen vie for the title of the world's largest, with each taking the crown from the other as the market moves. That's including Volkswagen's inherent advantage of sporting 12 brands versus Toyota's four. Audi, Lamborghini, Porsche, Bugatti, and Bentley are included in the Volkswagen brand family.
GM, America's largest automaker, is about half Toyota's size thanks to its 2009 bankruptcy and restructuring. Toyota is actually a major car manufacturer in the United States; in 2016 it made about 81% of the cars it sold in the U.S. right here in its nearly half a dozen American plants. If you're driving a Tundra, RAV4, Camry, or Corolla it was probably American-made in a red state. Toyota was among the first to introduce gas-electric hybrid cars into the market, with the Prius twenty years ago. It hasn't been afraid to change the car game.
All of this is to point out that Toyota understands both the car market and the infrastructure that supports it perhaps better than any other manufacturer on the planet. It hasn't grown its footprint through acquisitions as Volkswagen has, and it hasn't undergone bankruptcy and bailout as GM has. Toyota has grown by building reliable cars for decades.
When Toyota offers an opinion on the car market, it's probably worth listening to. This week, Toyota reiterated an opinion it has offered before. That opinion is straightforward:
The world is not yet ready to support a fully electric auto fleet.
Toyota's head of energy and environmental research Robert Wimmer testified before the Senate this week, and said: "If we are to make dramatic progress in electrification, it will require overcoming tremendous challenges, including refueling infrastructure, battery availability, consumer acceptance, and affordability."
Wimmer's remarks come on the heels of GM's announcement that it will phase out all gas internal combustion engines (ICE) by 2035. Other manufacturers, including Mini, have followed suit with similar announcements.
Tellingly, both Toyota and Honda have so far declined to make any such promises. Honda is the world's largest engine manufacturer when you take into account its boat, motorcycle, lawnmower, and other engines it makes outside the auto market. Honda competes in those markets with Briggs & Stratton and the increased electrification of lawnmowers, weed trimmers, and the like.
Wimmer noted that while manufactures have announced ambitious goals, just 2% of the world's cars are electric at this point. For the price, range, infrastructure, affordability, and other reasons, buyers continue to choose ICE over electric, and that's even when electric engines are often subsidized with tax breaks to bring price tags down.
The scale of the switch hasn't even been introduced into the conversation in any systematic way yet. According to Finances Online, there are 289.5 million cars just on U.S. roads as of 2021. About 98 percent of them are gas-powered. Toyota's RAV4 took the top spot for purchases in the U.S. market in 2019, with Honda's CR-V in second. GM's top seller, the Chevy Equinox, comes in at #4 behind the Nissan Rogue. This is in the U.S. market, mind. GM only has one entry in the top 15 in the U.S. Toyota and Honda dominate, with a handful each in the top 15.
Toyota warns that the grid and infrastructure simply aren't there to support the electrification of the private car fleet. A 2017 U.S. government study found that we would need about 8,500 strategically-placed charge stations to support a fleet of just 7 million electric cars. That's about six times the current number of electric cars but no one is talking about supporting just 7 million cars. We should be talking about powering about 300 million within the next 20 years if all manufacturers follow GM and stop making ICE cars.
Simply put, we're going to need a bigger energy boat to deal with connecting all those cars to the power grids. A LOT bigger.
But instead of building a bigger boat, we may be shrinking the boat we have now. The power outages in California and Texas — the largest U.S. states by population and by car ownership — exposed issues with powering needs even at current usage levels. Increasing usage of wind and solar, neither of which can be throttled to meet demand, and both of which prove unreliable in crisis, has driven some coal and natural gas generators offline. Wind simply runs counter to needs — it generates too much power when we tend not to need it, and generates too little when we need more. The storage capacity to account for this doesn't exist yet.
We will need much more generation capacity to power about 300 million cars if we're all going to be forced to drive electric cars. Whether we're charging them at home or charging them on the road, we will be charging them frequently. Every gas station you see on the roadside today will have to be wired to charge electric cars, and charge speeds will have to be greatly increased. Current technology enables charges in "as little as 30 minutes," according to Kelly Blue Book. In that best-case scenario, fast charging cannot be done on home power. It uses direct current and specialized systems. Charging at home on alternating current can take a few hours overnight to fill the battery, and will increase the home power bill. That power, like all electricity in the United States, comes from generators using natural gas, petroleum, coal, nuclear, wind, solar, or hydroelectric power according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. I left out biomass because, despite Austin, Texas' experiment with purchasing a biomass plant to help power the city, biomass is proving to be irrelevant in the grand energy scheme thus far. Austin didn't even turn on its biomass plant during the recent freeze.

Half an hour is an unacceptably long time to spend at an electron pump. It's about 5 to 10 times longer than a current trip to the gas pump tends to take when pumps can push 4 to 5 gallons into your tank per minute. That's for consumer cars, not big rigs that have much larger tanks. Imagine the lines that would form at the pump, every day, all the time, if a single charge time isn't reduced by 70 to 80 percent. We can expect improvements, but those won't come without cost. Nothing does. There is no free lunch. Electrifying the auto fleet will require a massive overhaul of the power grid and an enormous increase in power generation. Elon Musk recently said we might need double the amount of power we're currently generating if we go electric. He's not saying this from a position of opposing electric cars. His Tesla dominates that market and he presumably wants to sell even more of them.
Toyota has publicly warned about this twice, while its smaller rival GM is pushing to go electric. GM may be virtue signaling to win favor with those in power in California and Washington and in the media. Toyota's addressing reality and its record is evidence that it deserves to be heard.
Toyota isn't saying none of this can be done, by the way. It's just saying that so far, the conversation isn't anywhere near serious enough to get things done.

YOU CAN IGNORE REALITY, BUT YOU CANNOT IGNORE THE CONSEQUENCES OF IGNORING REALITY.

 

[Thunder chicken]

What is rarely discussed or printed are the 'numbers' for the cost of the charging stations. For home use, you'll need to update hydro service by 100A. Fine 100 to 200 is a typical upgrade, but... you can't go from 200 to 300, has to be 400. THAT is $$$$$. also ANY upgrade, here in Ontario , triggers a whole house electrical inspection($$$) and pretty suree 99.44% of those inspected WILL require $$$$ upgrades to become 'code compliant'. Best be sitting down when the installer quotes you what arc fault breakers cost !!!! If enough people on the street go EV, the main 3 phase feeds (4800V) will have to be upgraded ALL the way to the substation ($$$) and maybe the transformers there as well($$$$$$$).
Sure EVs sound nice, but look under the 'smoke and mirrors'..it's a HUGE money pit.
BTW cost to replace F150 battery (1 every 6 years) will be about $15,000. Probably more due to salt corrosion effects. There's also GST of 13% on top of the 15K AND 'environmetal disposal fees.

interesting….. I had a 400a service put in my place a few years ago, 200 to the house, 200 to a new pole building. It was about $2000 (had a 200a on house already). New meter base, and a new line from pole to meter (all underground). It was only marginally more than running a line and sub panel from the house.
No one inspected my house….. maybe Ontario is pretty big and it’s not all the same?

 

[Fordtech86]

A friend sent this to me just last week......

smart friend

 

[TheOldHokie]

interesting….. I had a 400a service put in my place a few years ago, 200 to the house, 200 to a new pole building. It was about $2000 (had a 200a on house already). New meter base, and a new line from pole to meter (all underground). It was only marginally more than running a line and sub panel from the house.
No one inspected my house….. maybe Ontario is pretty big and it’s not all the same?

In 2006 I upgraded my 200A service to 400A New meter base double lugged for the existing 200A panel in my house and a new 200A panel in my new 3000sf shop. It was about $600 for the new enclosure and the electrician who set the meter and made rhe connections. I trenched and buried the new service going to the shop.

All the POCO did was cut the feed at the transformer long enough for the electrician to move the old conductors to the new meter box. Time on site about an hour.

Everything was inspected and approved by the county.

Dan

 

[greg86z28]

I work in the clean energy industry. Electrification and reducing carbon emissions is probably one of the greatest and complex challenges our society may face. It won’t be cheap or easy.

The question is, “is it worth to it?” If you believe climate change is fake, then probably not. If you think it’s a real risk then probably.

I’m prepared for change and will be happy either way. If I’m driving an electric F150 in 5-10 years so be it. I’ll find the positives in the changing world.

EDIT: I got this survey too. My first thought was the BX series is a perfect fit, suburban homeowners who primarily mow and snowblow/plow. Perfect fit.

 

[DDCD]

In 2006 I upgraded my 200A service to 400A New meter base double lugged for the existing 200A panel in my house and a new 200A panel in my new 3000sf shop. It was about $600 for the new enclosure and the electrician who set the meter and made rhe connections. I trenched and buried the new service going to the shop.

All the POCO did was cut the feed at the transformer long enough for the electrician to move the old conductors to the new meter box. Time on site about an hour.

Everything was inspected and approved by the county.

Dan

Yeah it's not a big deal at all to get 400amp service. The easiest way is to drop a second meter off the same transformer.

As far us "upgrading the lines all the way to the substation", no, they don't. Transformers, yes they can no longer support four 200A homes. They have to watch the voltage on individual phases but usually they will roll phases before upgrading a substation. There are four 200A houses on my 25kva transformer. New addition the the neighborhood has 2 houses per 37.5kva transformer.

Most houses barely break 50 amps except for heavy startup loads.

Electric cars can charge off anywhere from 15A to over 50A circuit. Usually overnight.

Like it or not electric companies are well aware of what is coming and there is no stopping it.

 

[TheOldHokie]

Yeah it's not a big deal at all to get 400amp service. The easiest way is to drop a second meter off the same transformer.

As far us "upgrading the lines all the way to the substation", no, they don't. Transformers, yes they can no longer support four 200A homes. They have to watch the voltage on individual phases but usually they will roll phases before upgrading a substation. There are four 200A houses on my 25kva transformer. New addition the the neighborhood has 2 houses per 37.5kva transformer.

Most houses barely break 50 amps except for heavy startup loads.

Electric cars can charge off anywhere from 15A to over 50A circuit. Usually overnight.

Like it or not electric companies are well aware of what is coming and there is no stopping it.

In my case running conductors for a second meter would have been considerably more expensive and a second meter would have put me in a different and more costly service category. POCO and electrician were in agreement on this solution.

Dan

 

[fried1765]

Recently, I received a survey from Kubota about electric tractors; it said that I received it due to my purchase of a sub-30 HP tractor. I guess Kubota is trying to measure interest in electric compact/sub-compact tractors. Based on the questions, it would seem that Kubota thinks such a tractor will be more expensive than a current diesel model. I am sure my answers conveyed my lack of interest and my preference for diesel power.

What were your reactions?

My reactions?
I don't think Kubota even knows that I own a Kubota tractor.
(L48 TLB, bought used 2019).

 

[ItBmine]

The mine I work at bought a Rokion electric truck. I asked the guys how it is working out. They said good when it stays under ground, but as soon as it comes to surface in the winter at minus 25 to 40 degrees celcius, not so much. And now that it has spent some time underground going through water puddles they say it is having electronics issues.
They just ordered nine new Kubota RTV diesels.

Rokion Battery Powered Electric Vehicles

Rokion is a global leader in the manufacture and supply of battery electric vehicles for the heavy industrial and mining industries

rokion.com

 

[lynnmor]

We tried this nonsense many years ago. Early Electric Cars

 

[DDCD]

In my case running conductors for a second meter would have been considerably more expensive and a second meter would have put me in a different and more costly service category. POCO and electrician were in agreement on this solution.

Dan

Oh yeah I wasn't saying you are wrong. Every situation and electric company is different. 400A service puts me in commercial territory when 2 200A meters does not. My point was the comment that the grid is going crash or a residential 200 amp service can't handle an electric car/bike/scooter/tractor. I wasn't around when wagons were still used but I'm assuming they thought the automobile was dumb also.

 

[greg86z28]

I wasn't around when wagons were still used but I'm assuming they thought the automobile was dumb also.

This x100.

This is human nature. We oppose change. I promise you that people looked down on the first automobiles in favor of their horse and buggies. Horse and buggies were faster, quieter, more reliable. Hell, where were you going to get fuel for that fancy automobile!? Imagine if everyone had automobiles! How the hell would there be enough fuel stations?! You'd be running out of fuel constantly!

Or how about fuel injection? There was opposition to that: too confusing, too complicated. Why shift away from carburetors, they've served us well for the past 50 years! Easy for the common man to fix and maintain.

 

[jyoutz]

This has disaster written all over it. We are losing grid capacity due to older plants taken offline, not enough investment in nuclear power, and eventually coal plants outlawed. Nothing planned that can replace it.
Add a huge EV load to the grid and see what happens.
Keep an eye on this issue in California for the next few years if you want to see our future.

In my state, all coal fired power plants will be decommissioned within the next 5 years; all replaced by natural gas, wind and solar. All of these energy sources are abundant in my state.

 

[BruceP]

Of course it requires power. The data are in. Depending on your location and residential power rate a full 400 mile charge on a model S costs somewhere between $6 and $16 dollars. It can be done overnight using a dryer circuit or a bit faster using a home charger. If you have rooftop solar you can cut that cost by daytime charging.

As an Engineer, I keep a spreadsheet of EVERY vehicle I own (cars, trucks, motorcycles...even a Vespa scooter) Hence, I used my own measurements to calculate the only metric which can compare energy sources. COST PER MILE. (Dollars -per- Mile)

I owned a Diesel sedan and over 160,000 miles it averaged $0.06/mile.
Using the numbers you presented above (worst case) The calculation would be $16/400 = $0.04/mile.

This is a strong argument for EV. However, without knowing long-term maintenance and resale numbers.... there is more we need to know. (not to mention Environmental differences between ICE and EV)

It will be several years before battery-recycling will become mainstream. At this point, it is a nasty chemical process.

I am not arguing FOR -nor- AGAINST ... just looking at the facts.

 

[SDT]

When I say - I hope not, I mean I hope that EVs (and electric tractors) will not be legislated/mandated/subsidized into the mainstream - as is occurring now.

I am all for economically viable progress - not central planning by the government.

Bingo.

 

[SDT]

"Someday" is coming real fast. GM has already announced their plan to end ALL diesel and gasoline vehicle production by 2035. The other OEMs are following suit.

Go schedule a test drive of a Tesla Model S. It has a highway range of 400 mile, a top speed of 200 MPH and can put 1000HP on the ground at the flip of a switch and launch you from 0 to 60 in 2.0 seconds. Buy it today for the price of a high end Mercedes with less performance. This is reality not fantasy.

Dan

Baring mandates, I'll believe GM's plan only when I see the results.

 

[SDT]

There are ALREADY battery-powered excavators.

This Electric Caterpillar Excavator Is the Tesla of Heavy Construction Equipment

Pon Equipment plans to deliver eight of the excavators to EV-crazed Norway.

www.thedrive.com

From my engineering point-of-view: (simple math can be used to calculate electric-usage by converting diesel fuel usage into KiloWattHours) [1 Horsepower = 746 Watts]

• The amount of power needed to do this kind of work all day long simply is not available from batteries.
• The amount of power to RECHARGE in a reasonable time is rarely available. (high amperage 220v)
• Fast-charging batteries shortens their lifespan.
• electric-power is not always available where this kind of equipment is used.
• Electricity has always been one of the most expensive forms of power. (Diesel is one of the least-expensive along with Natural-Gas...both of which are used to GENERATE electricity)
• Replacing the batteries will be expensive (including the recycling costs which have not been standardized as of yet)

Dont get me wrong. I like my battery-powered push-mower. It lasts about 20 minutes and that is all I need. (I do have to keep the blade RAZOR sharp after every use... lest it does not cut well)

In the end--- we need a breakthrough in battery-technology before EV can be truly mainstream....even then, the COST of electricity will remain higher than any other energy form.

Inherently, any battery which can store MASSIVE amount of power in small space will be dangerously explosive. (battery failure, short circuits...etc) Imagine a tankfull of gasoline releasing all of its power at once!!

Well said.

 

[SDT]

This has disaster written all over it. We are losing grid capacity due to older plants taken offline, not enough investment in nuclear power, and eventually coal plants outlawed. Nothing planned that can replace it.
Add a huge EV load to the grid and see what happens.
Keep an eye on this issue in California for the next few years if you want to see our future.

Well said, again.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

interesting read on the ev-cat.
battery weight 3.5x more than the diesel..HAS to factor into the overall performance as ,well, you have to move ex every so often...
you get 5 hrs 'run time'... probably rated for SUMMER use ? 5hrs is a 1/2 day for the guys I know.
hmm 2hr recharge...yeah WHERE do you plug it in. 99% of the jobsites I see don't have hydro close to where the ex is working. Sure be nice to SEE what it'd cost to recharge !

Cub Cadet offers an EV-Rider, basic 42" machine...$6000+, copared to $2000 gas version,3-4 hrs of runtime, overnight to recharge....

it's all in the details.. the ones 'they' don't publish...

 

[Geezer3d]

I believe that I could use an electric tractor for my purposes. I am a homeowner with 55 acres and primarily use the tractor for landscaping, snow plowing, and moving firewood. An electric tractor would have to have equal or better capabilities to the diesel powered tractor I currently use (LX2610), and the total cost of ownership would have to be equal or better, including many years of use.

Based on those criteria, I don't think the current technology is anywhere near meeting my needs, especially the total cost of ownership.

My biggest concern is that we may find it difficult to buy fuel for gasoline and diesel powered machines at some point in the future.