Electric Vehicles Face Bumpy Road to the Back 40

There is one place in America where electric vehicles are glaringly absent — the back 40. Today, electric tractors and other farming equipment are hard to find on showroom floors, let alone in the field.

The outside pressure on agriculture to park its diesel-powered horses for climate-friendly all-electric alternatives is quickly reaching a boiling point. Seven states have opted to ban the sale of gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035, and six major auto manufacturers have pledged to end gas car sales globally by 2040. 

But hold your horses. The hurdles EVs must clear to be viable on the farm are incredibly high from both an engineering and an economic standpoint. Powering such massive machines by a battery alone adds even more weight and mass.

John Deere’s website shows its 8R tractor has a starting base weight of 25,200 lbs. Current engineering assessments say an all-electric version would weigh more than twice as much. 

Roadblocks for Adoption
Soil compaction already weighs heavily on how modern farm equipment is designed. Increasing the weight and mass of such machines may end up creating more, not fewer, emissions.

Compacted soil releases greenhouse gasses such as methane and nitrous oxide, which are much more potent than a tractor’s exhaust.

Another issue is lack of battery life. The all-electric tractors slated to come to market can only work four  to eight hours per charge. Although those numbers are likely to improve significantly, the downtime needed to recharge such massive batteries could be several hours.

Lack of charging infrastructure is one of the bigger bumps in the road. Deploying a large fleet of all-electric, heavy-duty agricultural vehicles will require multiple heavy-duty super-chargers — an expensive and potentially unrealistic endeavor.

All other issues aside, cost may be the biggest factor. Right now, low-horsepower tractors are approximately 30% more expensive than their diesel-powered equivalents. That may work on an all-electric garden tractor but not a half-million dollar Quadtrac.

The secret is commercial EV sales have soared due to federal rebates. But unlike with cars, there’s no federal program to ease the burden of an electric tractor. If bureaucrats and consumers really want to turn Old MacDonald’s farm all-electric, then they better put their money where their mouth is.