Posted by Kaibeezy 20 hours ago
And there was no fancy technology in it at all. If I was in the forest and had forgotten the key, I'd just reach behind the dashboard and hot-wire it. The air filter was basically a shisha-pipe that bubbled the incoming air through wire wool and engine oil.
Its fuel gauge didn't work either. You just had to take a look in the tank, or quickly react as soon as the revs started dropping. I ran it dry a few times and had to sit there with a spanner in one hand and YouTube into the other, while trying to bleed all the fuel lines. But they were all on the outside of the vehicle, which made it comparatively easy I imagine.
I've never actually driven a modern tractor, so don't know how it compares. I imagine the clutch is easier on the knees these days!
Anyway, this just felt like the place to share this.
There is a tradition in several European countries named Affouage: If you live in a rural area, you can get very cheap (or even free) wood at the condition that you go to cut it yourself in the close-by forest.
Many many people who are doing this practice are still using today Massy Fergusson 135, Renault R98/461, Ford 3000-4000 series, SOMECA or similar low tech tractors.
The reason are simple: They are cheap to operate, cheap to repair (damages happen easily forest environment) and their small size is perfect for the task.
The demand for these things will never die. Rugged environment requires cheap and robust hardware.
If this startup can capitalize on that, they do have a market.
When I started out, 13ish or so, I had to stand on the clutch to get it down.
If you gave it enough beans and dropped the clutch it'll pop a wheelie! (Don't tell my grandpa)
I'd teach someone to drive it and say, "now push down on the clutch". They they would heave and struggle, then eventually succeed and look victorious. I'd say, "well done, it is now half way down! But that's all you need for now!"
EDIT: To fully explain: It has a two-stage clutch. You half-press it and it disconnects the wheels from the engine. If you fully depress it all the way to the floor, it additionally disconnects the power-take-off shaft (PTO) from the engine. The PTO shaft is a spindle on the back of the tractor which drives things like your flail mower, wood chipper, etc.
EDIT 2: Edit 1 was for the general audience, not the parent commenter ;-)
I have certainly driven cars with lighter and heavier clutches (I live in EU, automatics weren't popular until recently and are still far from ubiquitous) but I couldn't tell you why every model just doesn't get a light clutch for comfort. A diesel Subaru I drove had a particularly heavy clutch as I recall, so at stop lights I would pop into neutral instead of holding the clutch down for an extended period.
Modern machines may use complex mechanical linkages to make the clutch easy to pull apart but still maintain a firm contact, but that also means higher cost and fragility. Or they use pneumatics or hydraulics to assist, sorta like power steering.
Since then I always pop into neutral when standing at a traffic light. It is interesting how many people in manual driving cultures think there would be no wear and tear if they press the pedal down completely.
Of course there is, as there has to be a force translating connection between rotating parts and parts of the release mechanism which cannot rotate. Only when the pedal is left alone, the release bearing disconnects from the rotating clutch.
... and kills/maims anyone with lose clothing trying to step over it!
I mowed using a Farmall H on a family farm when I was about 12 y/o. I don't remember ever having deadly serious conversations with family members up to that point in my life. All four grandparents, aunts and uncles-- it seemed like everybody-- sat me down, looked me dead in the eye, and told me sternly and bluntly "you turn off the PTO and see the shaft isn't turning before you get off the tractor. Every. Time."
All of them knew somebody who lost an arm or leg or got killed when they got pulled into a PTO.
That was probably the first time I'd ever been given the opportunity to operate a machine that would fucking kill me if I shirked on respecting it. I will never forget the tone of that communication.
Rural kids are put into situations where they are expected to rely fully on themselves, with life-or-death consequences, from a young age. When your pre-teen is driving a machine on their own that could easily kill them or those around them, giving them a .22 rifle is just... normal. It's not at all the same situation as a kid the same age who lives in an apartment and who may have never been in a place where no one would be close enough to hear them if they screamed for help.
I can't wrap my head around the idea that a large number of people who live in cities seem to want to extend childhood through age 25. My daughters are 12 and 17, and between them have over fifty animals directly depending on them for survival. It's just... foreign.
I lived on a farm for a year as a young kid (farmer rented a couple of trailers on his land). I remember one day I was hanging around the hog pen watching the giant hogs mill about, probably contemplating trying to pet one. Mr Austin came by and sternly told me to not to reach through the fencing, then knelt down and showed me his ear, which was missing a big chunk.
Rural folks might learn to respect a PTO or the varmint rifle by age 10, but city kids learn how to navigate the bus routes and subway. They learn how to walk on crowded streets, how to live among a lot of different people, including dangerous people(and how to avoid the conflict).
It's all quite interesting. Different kinds of toughness, different kinds of mental fortitude.
Wish I could move; I could sell this overpriced place and almost retire.... not under my control
Why, if I may ask?
> a large number of people who live in cities seem to want to extend childhood through age 25
This is not great, and a more complicated problem of percieved danger.
come to the city, farm boy, and we'll give you a corner you can sling the brown from and we see how you do. we find something fo yo daughters to do too*
*i have absolutely no street smarts, country or city, but I do watch Law & Order and know how to pound a nail and know what to grease the maitre d' to get into the hottest restaurants in town. and beyond that i got friends, some of these guys know people who know people, just sayin
Good that at least there wasn't much gear changing, pick one for task and just use it
I’m in the market for a tractor in roughly that size, and am very tempted to just find an old machine in decent shape. I’d be very curious about the decision/experience if you did upgrade to something more modern?
It came in handy living in the country, when occasionally someone would get bogged down on a dirt road, and this thing would come to the rescue.
I also love driving it, apart from the fact the hydraulics are somewhat off, so the front/rear lift won't ever stay in position.
The reason I know that is not that I'm a farmer. It's that 20 years ago a bunch of friends and I wrote and performed a parody song of Gainsbourg/Bardot song "Harley Davidson" where the motorbike brand was replaced with the tractor one.
"Je n'ai besoin de personne en Harley Davidson"
became
"Je n'ai besoin de personne en Massey Ferguson".
Once, it broke down, and I was astonished to see that there are forums dedicated to this tractor. If I remember correctly, it was a problem with the fuel line that is rather common, and we managed to fix it thanks to these communities.
As I was researching it, I read stories of MF135s found abandoned in a ditch and starting immediately again. A robustness that makes this and other models popular in Africa...
They're phenomenal little machines that can do 99% of what you need. It blows my mind that for years, Grandpa farmed with a little Ford smaller than the 175. I can't imagine planting with that thing. The ww2 generation really were tough as nails.
During certain kinds of driving gear shifts became.. tricky. That's when I learned how to double-clutch, something I kept doing on cars as well, for many years after (think going steep uphill on snow and then having to shift into first gear without stopping)
And it still works.
Things were made different back then.
I looked up the manual, you got everything you need to repair it. Maintenance is extremely easy. Even have electric schema.
Now my BMW, I looked into the manual how to change a light. It said to go to the dealer lol.
Fuck the modern car / tractor / tools. I blame the people for that, we went from customer that demanded to be able to repair their stuff to people who are now mechanically illiterate. I'm not sure they would even know how to replace a tire on their Tesla :)
That's why manufacturer have all the latitude to do what they do. And that's why it didn't go very far with farmers.
It's amazing we let it slip this far. Even cars from a decade or so ago feel much more repairable. I bought an EV and I haven't even seen the motor yet, because I'm going to have to dismantle a bunch of plastic-clipped stuff to remove the frunk, and I've broken enough brittle tabs for one lifetime. God forbid they'd just use actual metal fasteners for this stuff.
It's even worst tho, one day I layed a little bit against the front of the car and it made a reverse bump in the bodywork right on my ass.
Got a 2000 Suzuki that is full metal.
I think the trend of plastic went around 2000 to 2010 because of regulation on crash, plastic absorbs better the kinetic energy so we don't get our head smashed.
But yeah, no excuse to not make it easy to dismantle. It's the equivalent of Volkswagen using all kind of different screws to hold the plastic protection under the car, so that the average Joe who has standards screw drivers can't bleed his oil himself or change the gasoline filter.
This is maddening but you don't know it when you buy the car. It's only later.
https://dailyyonder.com/census-report-unusually-informative-...
Go back to 1910, and more than 50% of the population lived in rural areas. And rural doesn't mean "suburbs". As this trend continues further back in time, I'd expect that people in their 30s may be living in cities in 1910, but we often not born there. They migrated from rural areas to the city.
Which means that city people even into the 50s had a very, very rural background.
So people who grew up on farms miles from any town or neighbours or stores, who had to rely upon themselves entirely, were the ones buying machines. But if you look at today, many people are apartment dwellers, or live in townhomes. They don't even have a place to fix something, let alone the tools or background.
I could fix any small engine before I was 10, work on cars before I could drive, and it's because you just picked up this stuff in a rural area. I guess my point is, if you don't know how to fix anything, and no one around you does except for specialists?
Then you probably won't care about owner repairability as much.
Sad, but probably a likely reason why we're where we are.
The old church had a mural of Icelandic Jesus wearing a fisherman’s sweater.
What is a shisha-pipe?
Great memories.
But the tractor does.
There are so many useful videos on this stuff, but unfortunately the majority of the population still seems reluctant to learn.
In fact when you open the interior plastic piece the whole thing springs apart and everything from the clicking mechanism to the electrical terminals explode in different directions.
Thankfully, someone had uploaded a video of a very similar switch and, after a few cross words (man I hate assembling mechanisms with springs), I had a new overhand knot in the string and all of the contacts, springs and terminals back in place.
I would, without doubt, drive down to a shop and buy a new one next time...
I actually had one of these connectors break on a bathroom light and just 3D printed a new one. But it should be fairly trivial to add one of these to any light pull you already have.
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5140505 (not my design)
Never underestimate a young person and their phone. They not only use youtube or chatgpt to solve daily problems, but date, pay bills, and communicate with their friends using mostly videos/photos/emojis (and occasionally english).
I have no plans to own a tractor but for some reason many others and I enjoy videos like this one:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVvO1tKKjRQ
* https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrCvcRxFfyzt3vJmctRaN...
etc. Also hydropower from old washing machine parts and other associated stuff you do on the land videos.
I never felt in control of that old beast
An awesome memory. Lovely things, these.
Now things have wrapped back around, and nobody would want that, they want less tech and to use their phone, lol.
Do you still have the Massy?
It's amazing we can use huge machinery with internal combustion engines and declare it "no fancy technology"
Wood furniture joined with glue and pegs rather than inserts and screws. Solid wood furniture at all. Leather and natural fibers gave way to plastics. Ornate castings gave way to simple stampings and simply castings (where things are still cast).
Now, electronics problems, albeit relativelly rare, were far more common and fucking expensive.
And then, but this more due to the state of modern roads and streets than the car themselves, suspension issues.
Although modern electronics take this further, with both operation and construction being utterly complex.
About 3 years ago a large branch (about 8" diameter) from an old overhanging tree fell right on the transparent sunroof cover and shattered it into a million pieces. After picking them out of the sunroof mechanism (which no longer worked after the impact) and the inside of the car, I covered the opening with several sheets of magnetized vinyl. Works great, never a drop of water inside since then and it's stayed in place without any attention. Temperature control inside the car at rest or while driving at highway speed is like it was before the damage.
Being old now I never go anywhere since I can get stuff delivered. About every 3 weeks I go out and the car starts right up, I drive a 5-mile loop to circulate the oil and then park it for another 3 weeks. Been doing this for years. I do get an oil change annually.
Try doing the same on the ECU in your car. I'll wait.
Neither of those machines had a transistor in them. It was all basic electricity.
Sure you wouldn't like a qualifier on that? I've definitely met some HS graduates that would not be able to do this.
See other story on front page right now: educational scores are trending down and that trend is only going to accelerate now that every student is using LLMs.
- Simple warranty support - No deep bench of customer support staff - No complex financing - Straightforward sales process
Heck, even the website is bare bones.
However, the tech exists for a reason and is not inherently bad, the issue is the lock-in, the lack of choice and interoperability.
IMO, there is plenty of space for an OEM who can play nice with others, offer an open (and vibrant ecosystem), and keep users coming back by choice, not by lock-in.
But tech in general is perhaps in a growing-up phase, we had Arduinos and Raspberry PI's filling a similar need (computer to electronics being needlessly complicated) that was initially filled from the low-end, but now we have faster SBC's and stuff like Framework laptop's that is expanding the range of options for repariable/replaceable/hackable parts up to the high end today and farming equipment is probably destined to get a similar range of options.
An interesting note here is, will cars also start getting a range of more hackable options, mechanics are ingenious already but it's still very much hacks without manufacturer support, but a new manufacturer providing a low-cost base could very well pop up and grow quickly if they establish an ecosystem.
These low-tech tractors could become a hot bed for open source experimentation. Nothing stopping someone from sticking a tablet on the dash. You could run GPS harvesting optimization software or some webthing locally. Could be cloud or clever DiY farmers could run their farm off a local instance on a small machine using a WiFi AP atop the barn or whatever.
But there's more to agtech than driving a tractor around, a lot of what these big integrated systems do (at the high end) is very data driven -- determining where and how to plant, irrigate, fertilize, etc. There's a lot of integration work beyond just making the tractor drive.
How difficult is this to implement outside of big ag-tech? I feel that a community of experienced farmers and programmers (or programmer-farmers) could tackle this.
The bigger agcorps have tones of integration.
The machine, from tractor to combine and everything in between often feeds data together to produce a holistic understanding.
Things like - How much fuel was used - Where your tractors and sprayers drove - Soil samples and content - How and where every bit of chemical and fertilizer was applied - What weather hit your field - How much and and the moisture content of every bit of the field you harvested
It goes on an on.
Yes, but how useful is the integration?
The sprayers/spreaders can be connected cheap computer to achieve most of what you describe.
I used to do literally that but in aircraft. Must be easier and cheaper in tractors
But if you're observing a fleet of 100+ machines you kinda need some integration and a central location. Which in turn connects to multiple other services like weather, crop markets, fuel prices etc.
A tractor is a big thing to have rolling around unsupervised. I would want a lot of safeguards. Blindly going from one GPS point to another sounds like a nightmare.
I just don't think you're going to effectively compete with big agtech by putting a bunch of parts in a box, shaking it, and hoping you end up with a beautifully integrated solution. Integration hell is the reason big commercial firms dominate when it comes to large integrated systems.
If you want to see a couple of guys learning how to farm from scratch, visit https://www.youtube.com/@spencerhilbert. Spencer and his brother made a bit of money off games and Youtube and have been starting out on corn, hay, as well as raising beef. It gives a pretty good insight into how pervasive tech is in farming, and how despite that, how much of farming still relies on hard, physical work.
However, I'm not as interested in being a farmer at that level. I'm much more interested in the homesteading aspect of farming. I'm not trying to feed the world as much as me and mine and maybe some extra. So not just farming, but also some ranching with sheep/goats/chickens/pigs. I have friends doing this that I'm keeping an eye on. They had a head start as their kids grew up in FFA and are already familiar with raising live stock, and then having them processed to make that part much less daunting.
So a DIY solution is aiming for somewhere in the center of the market -- enough scale that it makes sense to bother, but not enough enough money to avoid the headache of DIY. It might make sense for some mid-sized farms in developing economies, but it seems to be a narrow window to me.
It went a bit too far, optimum would be modern enough to have drive by wire but with open ECU and documentation
It is no harder than doing it with an ECU, except that you need to install a servo or speed governor with hand tools, instead of fiddling with ECU code.
These governors are basically mechanical analog computers which use the inertia of flyweights, springs, and some very clever linkages to do their thing.
And it's a bit easier to make 3rd party addons when you just have some open bus standard, not "mount that servo on a gas pedal"
Also note that maintaining a particular AFR in a diesel is kind of a non goal, at least from the perspective of engine performance. With the older style, simple injection systems that are user serviceable you only get one pulse per cycle. So you can't really change AFR without compromising torque output. For a tractor, when I set the lever all the way forward I (the operator) expect it to maintain revs sufficient to maintain 540rpm at the PTO unless it is not able to do so (fueling maxed out). Putting more load necessarily means more fuel in for a given RPM, ergo higher AFR. Note that turbocharging changes this equation a little.
Edit: specifically thinking of https://comma.ai/
This needs to be solved at government level with right to repair laws and requirement for open standards instead of believing in magic of "free market".
It also has a massive agricultural sector. You know how Canada is known as an oil and gas powerhouse? Agriculture is more than double the size of o+g in Canada.
I think the most well educated country on earth, with a massive, highly automated, agricultural sector might be able to reason about tractor software.
You are certainly aware that we , in Canada, have expertise in software that is quite a bit more advanced than tractor software.
Buuuuut, the cost of implementing that stuff hurts the competition way more, so Deere and friends don't really fight it.
They're trading absolute market size for stronger control over market share. Less people are going to buy their products at the margin if the products are made worse. But those that do will buy it from them, so more profit.
Yeah, we're talking about the same thing.... the word for a rich person who exchanges their cash for non-cash assets is "investor"
Have we learned nothing from what happened to the US's industrial economy.
If you turn the farm into an obviously poor investment it'll go tits up because neither wall street nor main street is dumb enough to invest money into a losing proposition.
However, financiers played an indisputable role in the current state of economic wealth in today's world.
Any argument made without acknowledging this is purely in bad faith. The problem is not regulation that benefits OEMs. The problem is that you can simply purchase regulations that benefit you.
It looks like magic because it works like magic. Surprisingly it is also possible to believe in the magic of "government intervention" though it looks less like magic and more like unintended consequences.
Farmers are just pissed they lose the ability to repair the vehicle easily or get stuck with monthly subscription because tractor company has changed the terms and you are praying they don't change it further.
---------------
Tractors aren't cars. It isn't merely inconvenient if they are unavailable at crucial times, so ease of repair is critical. Farmers have always done as much of their own maintenance as possible. John Deere has spent a lot of time taking away the reliability and ease of repair that farmers need in order to give them "advanced" features they don't need.
Farmers who want advanced capabilities might now look to build them on top of no-tech tractors with open-source solutions rather than trusting John Deere again. That way, if the "would be nice" tech has problems they can rip it off and get the harvest in without it.
Well, sure. Maintenance is an off-season job. Its that or sit on the couch watching TV, so you may as well be in the shop getting equipment ready. Even if it takes you longer than an experienced tech, does it really matter? Not really. The winters are long.
Repairs are a different story. When things break, you need it fixed now. Wasting a day trying to figure out how to separate complex, seized parts from each other isn't time you have. You're going to be hiring a mechanic who has done it a million times before.
Of course, more important than who does the work is part availability. Having the human capacity to get something fixed means nothing if you cannot also get the parts you need. I've certainly been caught more than once needing to wait a week on a part, which is not a fun place to be. And this is where John Deere has focused their business: Doing more to keep parts available near to where the farmers are, so that you can get parts exactly when you need them. This is, above all else, why John Deere is the market leader.
> Farmers who want advanced capabilities might now look to build them on top of no-tech tractors with open-source solutions
I have been going down this road and am starting to regret it a bit. The saving grace is that I have found enjoyment in building a system of my own. But if I found it to be a chore, at this point I'd have deep remorse that I didn't just pay someone like John Deere for a fully delivered, highly polished solution. I know the HN crowd tends towards the DIY, but, having actual experience here, I don't see this happening outside of the small subset of farmers who find fun in it. It is a decent hobby for those so inclined, but from a purely commercial perspective the time and effort can be better put to use elsewhere.
1. No matter how great of a shade tree mechanic you are, you will never be able to fix it faster than someone who does it every day. They have found all the little tricks and quirks about your machine that your casual maintenance will never uncover.
2. While large farms with full-time mechanics on staff have been known to make deals to warehouse parts in their own shop on consignment, much more realistically for any kind of normal farm you are going to have to drive to the dealership to get the parts you need. Whereas the dealership tech can bring the parts to you. Meaning that you have to travel twice as far, taking twice as long, to get the parts back to your equipment than if you call a mechanic.
The things that are likely to fail under use where there has been proper maintenance tend to be the things that are unpredictable and catastrophic, at very least requiring parts, and most likely requiring advanced knowhow. And at that point, the dealership tech is going to be faster at getting you back up and running, even if you could theoretically pull it off yourself. So, realistically, there isn't much of a compelling case for doing your own repairs when time is of the essence.
Farmers are often willing to accept more downtime to do it themselves out of pride, though. I admittedly often fall victim to that myself, so I get it. But it’s clear that the farmers who are serious about farming as a business aren’t dinking around trying to fix things themselves. It is not economically prudent to do so. Granted, not all farmers farm for business sake. For many it’s more of a hobby or lifestyle and wanting to be a part-time mechanic can play into that.
Not sure how much appetite there is for that but half price + 5 grand in off the shelf electronics seems like something margin sensitive farmers would do.
Always better short and long term to bring and maintain your own smarts.
This tractor will last 50 years (and maybe more). Your grandchildren will be able to still use it. That longevity is the primary reason farmers would be super interested in this.
Some jobs (like mucking a barn for example) don't require a high-tech tractor. Sometimes you just need a workhorse that you can trust will start, run and do the job. Every single time. I still see farmers running old minneapolis-moline tractors from 100 years ago!
There's lots of other electronics in most modern vehicles, but the public manufacturer rationales for electronic lockdowns almost always point back to emissions concerns because they're so defensible. How do you separate them?
There's no particular reason why a mechanical device needs computers for emissions, as the emissions removing components can still be attached and managed via simpler means. All emissions removing components are effectively physical devices, whether you are talking about carbon filters or PCV valves or particulate filters or the urea fluids that are added to the fuel. None of them requires complex software in order to function. There is no reason why you need to buy an official John Deere branded emissions component that is software locked to tractor and costs 10x the price of third party components that do the same thing.
Also, there is a large room to maneuver between "I want a sensor with some circuitry in it" and "the entire tractor is a proprietary computer with locked down parts". The right to repair movement is not about removing tech, but removing unnecessary proprietary tech that is designed to prevent owners of devices from repairing those devices themselves or with third party components.
I would have expected policy to be pragmatic here, with (relatively) relaxed emissions requirements, since an affordable and reliable food supply is in the national interest? Sounds like that's not the case
Sometimes. Above 26HP tractors do have to have emissions controls like diesel particulate filters now. Below that they don't.
Two stroke engines are pretty terrible in terms of unburned hydrocarbons and are disgusting for local air quality, which is why I'm glad they're being phased out in many areas.
I'd expect these tractors with I6 diesel engines to run pretty efficiently. I'd bet that the CO2 emissions from tractors are tiny in comparison from the emissions from trucks, fertiliser, and transporting the food.
I would still guess that lawnmowers produce more emissions overall, given that there are so many more mowers than tractors. But they get used less often than tractors, so who knows? Either way, I agree with your thinking process, that the most economical way to reduce overall emissions is to focus on what are actually producing the bulk of emissions.
I don't know how much better cars and trucks can get, and for mowers maybe electric is the answer. Mine is gas-powered, and I know it runs rich. I would love to come inside after mowing and not smell like fuel, so I'm in favor of better emissions controls on mowers.
The future for tools is electric 100%.
they may have a place in the distant future but in 2026, aint no way.
I haven't used one, but I saw a youtube review from Project Farm. You can check it yourself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6FM_08066I
The DeWalt chainsaw was similar or better than Stihl, in a different series of tests, including cutting trough 10 inch logs.
There were other brands which would stall or be worse, so it depends on the brand.
IF we wanted to do it properly, I'd imagine we'd have zero mandatory locks on ECU, just a little closed down black box with sensor installed in relatively tamper-proof way (of course there will always be one, the target is for 90% of people to not bother), logging away and maybe sending check engine light if it detects wrong AFR for too long.
Then you just check that on yearly MOT + any signs of tampering. Then owner is free to tune the engine as they want, provided the exhaust is still within the norms for most of the time.
Mandate common interfaces and open hardware. I shouldn't have to buy a $10k dongle to sniff codes. I certainly shouldn't have to buy a different one for each manufacturer.
They're still pushing the boundary today. The Ring Superbowl ad where they announced they're watching you (but they said "your dog") 24/7 apparently got a lot of people to quit Ring, and you know they're crunching the numbers to see if the retention rate is worth the extra surveillance collection.
With a $20 CAN transceiver, documentation and/or config files from the manufacturer, and a bit of Python or something, you could absolutely bench test those electronic injectors. You might even be able to pick your injection events and adjust the metering, supporting the equipment as it ages. I'd love to see Ursa Ag put in a Megasquirt engine controller [1] or Proteus [2] or similar. You can run TunerStudio on a Raspberry Pi and show it on a touchscreen on the dash.
It's possible to build user-friendly, inexpensive and open engine and vehicle controls. You don't need to have zero electronics to not have locked-down proprietary electronics, you just need to build the electronics in the right way.
[1] https://diyautotune.com/products/ms3357-c?_pos=2&_fid=69f494...
If a tractor with a clean-burning, efficient $7500k engine could be purchased and were designed around the theory that, in 20 years or so, the owner could reasonably quickly replace the entire engine (with a first-party or aftermarket solution), would that be a good solution?
The common tech that has solved these problems nicely (IMO) is network transceivers: SFP and similar modules are built according to multi-source agreements. They contain all kinds of exotic tech, and they are not intended to be serviced at all, but (unless your switch or NIC has an utterly stupid lockout) you can pull it out and replace it with an equivalent part from a different vendor in seconds, and those parts can be unbelievably inexpensive considering what’s in them. (Single-mode bidirectional 1Gbps transceivers are $11 or less, retail, in qty 2. This is INSANE compared the the first time I lit up a 1Gbps SMF link. To be fair, this particular tech may require one to replace both ends if one fails, but if you can spare a second fiber, the fully IEEE-spec-compliant interoperable ones are even less expensive.)
However one major sticking point is that (often.. maybe always?) the engine block casting is actually a structural component of the tractor "frame". Unlike e.g. a truck that has its driveline mounted between frame rails, a tractor's "frame" is its driveline . So this might add quite a bit of complexity and cost.
EDIT: I did have some nozzles bored out a little bit once by a shop with EDM equipment. Terrible results, not worth it.
So a prerequisite might involve fixing the patent system...
It's so bad the FTC and states had to sue Deere over just the right to repair. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/...
The marketing excuse for the tech might be features or efficiency, but the reason for the tech is lock-in and minimising product lifetime.
The days when manufacturers had friendly, cooperative relationships with their customers are long gone :( Can we bring them back? I hope so, but am not hopeful.
The problem is computers and software enable lock-in, because of their flexibility and communications capability. Get rid of them, and you make lock-in much more difficult (or even impossible if you use "standard" parts).
Also, computers and software are complex, and that complexity is not physically visible. If you want something you can completely understand, it's probably a good choice to simplify by cutting them out completely.
In any case, EFI gives you more control over the engine and vastly simplifies the overall product. I don't know if you've seen the mechanical fuel-injection pumps used by tractor diesels; they are basically tiny engines unto themselves, with their own little block and camshaft [0]. There is an entire world of diesel performance modding with a subset of it dedicated to modifying the Bosh P1700 mechanical fuel-injection pump to change timings, handle higher RPMs, and run higher pressures. I would not call it, or its carburetor cousin in the gasoline world, "simple" compared to computer-controlled fuel delivery.
An open-source ECU project, on the other hand, enabled a hacker to implement Koenigsegg's Freevalve tech on a Miata [1].
[0]: https://blessedperformance.com/ddp-cummins-hot-street-p-pump...
This is so cool, shame that Freevalve never seemed to go anywhere.
People are just tired of being mislead and abused by corporations, which is why there is now a market for non-tech products.
Do you need it? No. Is it nice to have? Yes.
The strict "no tech" premise of these tractors feels comparable to someone disabling the cruise control feature on their own car because they read an article about BMW locking heated seats behind a subscription.
I don't know much about tractors, but I would think that surely there are some modern benefits that these Ursa tractors are missing out?
However, the article claims that they're selling really well, so maybe at that price point the tradeoffs are still worth it.
If you want more examples look into IoT products like smart toothbrushes, many of them now are "AI enabled".
Not sure they needed to go all the way to mechanical injection tho, this is just literally burning money away
Sailboats have the similar issue:
When are are in the middle of the pacific and get an egine problem, you want the engine to be low tech enough to be able to fix, or at least patch, yourself with minimum parts.
Yanmar switched its whole lineup of engines to ECU around 2014, but the one without ECU are very much sought after for the above reason.
1. This fails, goes away and we're back where we started; or
2. They take the bag and sell to John Deere, who then locks down the tractors in the same way to force you to buy support, official parts and so on. And that'll happen. It's a bait-and-switch so somebody can get rich.
The only solution to this is collective ownership or some other non-profit structure so a handful of owners can't sell out and cash in.
Look to Spain's Mondragon Corporation [1] for inspiration.
[1]: https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/how-mondragon-be...
3. JD buys them, competition works, others notice they can just "build a tractor that's simple", and suddenly there are more competitors to choose from. JD still can't compete, and can't buy them all...or operate on small margins.
Tech for improvement for customers vs tech for moats/enshittification, especially when imposed by one side on the other.
The latter is never very good.
The effect of this is obvious and felt in the end product.
- My vehicle has a backup camera with a screen, but has physical buttons for all controls (A/C, audio system). There's no reason cars can't have both.
Specifically, 10 feet by 20 feet directly behind the vehicle. I'm actually curious how this could be achieved with only mirrors. That's a pretty big swath for anything with a viewpoint where the driver is sitting.
> My vehicle has a backup camera with a screen
Early implementations just used a screen in the rearview mirror. No need for any kind of infotainment screen.
It's there when the truck is in reverse and otherwise just a normal mirror.
Early 2010s actually seems like a sweet spot for a lot of automotive tech - it's decent enough, but "mobile" wasn't really a thing yet, and bandwidth was expensive, so there's no assumption that everything should be an app phoning home yet (iPhone was still brand new).
Most Toyotas I've seen have a screen for the backup camera and the carplay/music/gps console, but everything else is still knobs and buttons.
This is true on both my 2013 and 2026 Toyotas.
I tried a 2025 Ford Maverick for a year before I traded it for the Tacoma. All the AC/Heat/Etc controls were on the screen. Couldn't stand it. Put me off of ever considering a new Ford again.
It's the regulations (or lack thereof) that allow touchscreens in cars as they are that should be the target of ire. Reverse camera regulations or not, the current state of touchscreen car rubbish was inevitable without the existence and enforcement of regulations addressing it.
There is a value in safety regulation but the incentives as legislated have led to negative results. It needs to be fixed or repealed. Not sure there's a clean solution here.
> BRING YOUR OWN TECH
> Bring the apps you know and love to create the experience you want. Instead of a bulky, distracting, and quickly outdated infotainment system, a Slate can come with something simpler: a smartly designed mount that fits a phone or tablet and a holder for a portable Bluetooth speaker. Heating and air conditioning are included, no need to bring your own fan.
> Your Slate will age gracefully, because it’ll always have the latest tech—yours.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6_9_HHLOSY
(Not for sale yet though.)
I get there's been plenty of vaporware cars in the past but by all signs Slate is making real progress towards delivering actual vehicles.
Personally I have a 2019 Mazda 3 which has camera vision all around, radar cruise control and heated seats but no lane assist bumping you around or a cellular connection relaying any information.
The only anti feature it has is that stupid idle stop, but that’s easy to permanently disable. It also has car play but doesn’t have a touch screen.
Anyway I’m not saying you should get this car specially but there are cars out there that are like what you want.
I recently did a lawn tractor conversion from gas to electric and what I got was in my opinion significantly better and more reliable than a commercial option at 20% of the price but it is limited to 4mph. Scaling it to 5 would require a lot of custom fabrication and a much more expensive drive motor. Once this tech is significantly better and cheaper to the point of being a commodity it will be a different story. For now it just isn’t.
Cheap, fast enough, practical, goofey looking.
3 out of 5, which I think merely qualifies it as "average"
And with all the distracted drivers looking into their phones while driving, I want more and more cars to get at least emergency breaking systems.
I'm unclear whether you're stating the current state of affairs, or arguing that such safety features cannot exist without this lock in.
If it's the latter, you may have missed the point. GP was clear they want modern safety and powertrain, just without the tracking.
None of the safety features you mention require the manufacturer to harvest and sell personal data — that's a separate choice OEMs have made, not a technical prerequisite.
So consumers DO want all-touchscreen disposable cars like Tesla - it's similar to how disposable phones had replaced phones with removable batteries(even among IP rated phones). Wallets vote strongly against consumers.
No issues so far.
These days, the big foreign manufacturers are all in the same game as the domestic ones - software nonsense. Tariffs are keeping other foreign competition out at the moment, so it'd have to be a new domestic manufacturer, or an existing one who deviates from the standard auto playbook.
Heated seats and stearing wheel, yes please.
But yep what I want is a Saab 900 "cockpit" car -- everything can be focused on and manipulated (physically!) without my eyes leaving the road or my hand having to explore too much.
But, yeah, electric.
1. LOVE this idea as I've always been a big fan of "right to repair" and even at work, FinTech SRE/DevOps, I say things like "we want this to be like a 1975 Ford: you open the hood, look inside, understand it and it's easy to fix. We don't want a 2026 Ferrari."
2. The Econ major/MBA in me wonders how long you can sell cheaper tractors that last forever. I say this b/c it's like trying to sell 100 year lightbulbs: markets are not infinite so if you have everyone buy them in years 1-10, what do you sell after that? The general idea is that you charge MORE for these things since a. "easy to repair" is now an added feature, b. people will buy less of your thing so you need to make more money upfront.
Granted, there is probably some sweet spot and/or "even selling 1,000 == a couple million and that's enough for anyone" but I still like to debate the points
The bulb stuff was a cartel not normal functional markets.
And just because a tractor is low tech and designed to run forever doesn’t mean it won’t still need parts and service. Time comes for us all and that includes your wheel bearings, bushings and seals.
> The 12-valve Cummins is arguably the most widely understood diesel engine in North America. Every independent shop, every shade-tree mechanic with a set of wrenches, every farmer who grew up turning bolts has encountered one.
That's great! I'd point out the 12 valve wasn't introduced until the 90s, but that's kind of immaterial -- it's as simple to work on as any other mechanically injected analog diesel is and they were in widespread use for nearly a century before that. One immediately wonders why we moved away from these and towards more complex options, and why this startup has to remanufacture old engines instead of sourcing new engines. The answer among those of us who care about right to repair tends to be "evil corporations want to make proprietary systems that require ongoing fees!" which is true for John Deere, but also, the EPA mandated DEF/DPF systems + limp modes on all farm equipment since 2014, and the new relaxed standards include complicated rules about what percentage into limp mode they go at different intervals during different periods of time after those notoriously unreliable systems start to have errors. You can't do that without modern ECUs!
I'm all for reducing the harm caused by running diesel engines in the most densely populated cities on the planet (DEF and similar systems are about particulate emissions, not carbon), but we're being naive if we pretend that extending these regulations to farm equipment isn't a huge factor in why that same equipment has gotten more expensive and less reliable over the past decade.
It's nice to see this company doing well for itself so quickly, and I hope they deliver on every promise made while reaping immense success. At the very least, it'd send a clear and unambiguous message that the market for simplicity is there and desperate for products that cater to it.
Video the press are taking stills from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDR6g9iG9Ds
Interview with more details on trade show floor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9QxeNyKbB4
In the meantime, they have to maintain a very high fixed cost base in their factory, distribution network, and skilled unionized workforce. I'm really not even asking about how will they maximize shareholder dividends, I just mean how do you not go bankrupt after you sell your first 10,000 tractors.
This is the whole reason why middle class is dying and power and wealth are being consolidated amongst the rich.
The thing is, your reputation will get out there. Folks will want to work with you because of who you are; it'll be profitable (in many ways) even if it isn't a 100-year dynasty.