- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmit.online
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmit.online
“There is consumer pressure to back away from technology that is unnecessary to perform everyday tasks.”
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Oh! Oh! Now do cars!
Make it a centre-articulating tractor no more than 2m wide, with 1.2m tall tires, min. 40-50Hp, and I would buy it in a heartbeat.
Look up the Holder AG35 or the A60 as an example. Fiendishly difficult to find outside of Europe, which is the problem.
So the only reason they can build this and not have to conform to pollution laws is because they’re using remanned Cummins 12v engines. There’s a limited number of those in any case. As soon as they have to conform with new engines, they’re going to get a lot more expensive.
Caterpiller stopped providing truck engines for a decade rather than R&D a compliant motor. That was the second largest truck engine manufacturer in the world, decided it was too expensive to bother, which tells you how much these engines cost new.
I love the idea of this tractor, but it’s not going to survive the economy of scale intact.
Caterpiller stopped providing truck engines for a decade rather than R&D a compliant motor.
Diesel is on it’s way out because of the particulates they emit. There’s no viable tech to reduce this, and national/state/regional/local regulations are all over the place. Too much chaos to bother investing the time and research. It’s not that diesels are expensive. They’ve been mass produced for 100+ years. The problem today is any investment in them is risky and companies don’t like/can’t afford the time + money + risk involved. DEF and particulate filters on the exhaust haven’t worked out well. Regulators want to keep throttling back emissions like they have done with gasoline engines already. There’s no way to win producing a “street legal” diesel. On the industrial/tractor/offroad front, little has changed really. Far less regulatory uncertainty there compared to the consumer space.
Diesel was great tech, for a time, but at this point all diesels are dinosaurs whose days are numbered. They simply pollute too much and in ways that are pernicious and harmful to public health.
I believe that these approaches to technology stem from having too little competition in any given space. Companies can only sell products with unpopular features when a) the product remains necessary and b) there are no real alternatives which don’t also have the anti-feature (or, the anti-feature is not seen as enough to deter against buying the thing).
It’s not just tractors: feels like every piece of tech now has a bunch of shit you don’t want (and even some that harms you), all in a disposable, unrepairable package that costs more than older tech. That older product was often just as good if not better than the newer one.
I just think we’re going to see this in cars and appliances soon. People might be hitting their limit on bullshit tech in commodities.
No I don’t need blutooth and wifi in my dishwasher.
Good to hear that there is a domestic option but Mahindra, of India, and Kioti, of South Korea, have been making owner repairable tractors for years.
Does Kioti actually have a reputation for reparability? Have been trying to find a small tractor lately
Kubota is probably the best price-to-value ratio in the small tractor market. Parts are much easier to get than some of these Chinese/Indian brands, and you will need to fix it, that’s the nature of a tractor.
Mahindra and Kioti have both service manuals and parts available. I’ve seen some people online complain about issues with specific dealers and having to wait for some parts to be shipped from overseas but that isn’t specific to those brands. I’ve never owned either one so YMMV.
I love my 2001 tractor. No computer, no bullshit, just a diesel engine, transmission and a hydraulic pump.
Does it not have an HPCR and ECU? Or is it still all mechanical?
It has some fuses and a couple of relays. Even the fuel pump is mechanical.
I’m not a farmer, but I keep my old car in good condition for the exact same reason.
If I could buy a brand new 1994 Toyota Camry, I would be sooooo happy.
If it still had a base MSRP of US$16428 or full-tits MSRP of US$23978…even better.
We had an excellently maintained late datsun z. Of course my idiot brother burns out the transmission doing idiot things in the late 90s and that totals her. Our mechanic bought it from us and i still see her around town.
I should’ve just learned how to fix the damn thing myself, but they do have some nice safety features (like the “hey, someone is in your blind spot, dipshit” light so i can tell at a glance they’re in my blind spot instead of having to turn and stare them down). i really need to finish learning how to weld and solder and i bet i could just build that damn car.
Heh when I was a teenager my dad bought a Datsun 260Z as a project car. It was a rusted out shell of a chassis/squirrel den and drivetrain when we got it.
I remember taking turns trying to unstick the crankshaft, by hand with a bigass breaker-bar with the head loaded up with MMO. And the feeling of success when red goo shot out the cylinders like a satanic bukkake scene when we finally got it unstuck.
We ended up getting it road-worthy, though I don’t think he ever let me drive it. I was too tall to really drive it comfortably anyway, especially once he put the RSX seats in. Still, I learned a lot about cars and French while we worked on it.
Because it’s your dad I’m assuming French language and not French kissing because ew.
Also i am a few
frescasdecades deep but I think ours was a 280z. Think. It was the car dad wanted to use to pick up chicks but only the coquerelles were interested
Surely repairable doesn’t mean no tech, just open tech. I’m sure there is tech features that are worth having. It’s the vendor lockin and enshitification that isn’t.
so the squeezening of tech into vehicles seemed to happen at right the same time engine compartments stopped having enough room to change the headlights without having to bust out a cherry picker. at least from the “i can fix a carburetor but maybe not a self parking system why does my grain thresher have one of those anyways” perspective over here.
That is all anyone ever asked for. Farmers are not the kind to throw their hands up and call support to help fix and modify their own shit.
Also a big issue was not that they had to get support or help, but that there are time critical points of the year such as harvest that you need your machine running literally every hour of the day and even though they could easily physically fix or replace a part themselves the machine would lock out until a certified technician came out to plug their laptop in a certify genuine parts are used or fixes have been made.
Then the local certified repairman wasnt able to attend the service call for days and that was just not acceptable when an entire years income would be impacted by the speed they could harvest before potential damages which would affect profit margins.
So its not just the frustration of being locked out but the lack of sufficient manufacturer support.
I’ve got my grandfathers Massey Ferguson 135. The only thing I’ve had to do is replace the seals. The manual explains exactly how to do it and a few youtube videos and I was good.
Already exists and has existed for years.
i’m not familiar with these dudes but from these photos it looks like plans to build your own tractor out of parts from the hardware store (if you buy an engine from OSE of course) and this is the base frame that you can then add the accessories to and make it the tractor you need. i mean all i am seeing is tractor frame, no tractor body.
But look at all the Prdecessors it has!
Right, but this is a new company building a tractor like “the good ole days” and surprise surprise, lots of demand
While I am a fan of open source, being able to buy a product is a different thing
