Is Deere Pushing Electric Tractors? An Exclusive Interview with John Deere’s CTO

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January 18, 2023

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by Tyne Morgan (Farm Journal/AgWeb) … Rumors have been circulating about the direction of Deere’s technology investments, and Farm Journal had the chance to sit down with John Deere’s Chief Technology Officer, Jahmy Hindman, to set the record straight and uncover what Deere sees as the future of equipment and ag technology.

The conversation was at the backdrop of CES, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada earlier this month.

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A social media post went viral this year, claiming Deere was pushing larger farmer operators to go all-electric. So, we asked Hindman about it. In short, Hindman says the post was simply not true.

“It didn’t come from us, so it’s a bit of a mystery,” Hindman says. “I don’t really know where the genesis of that or where it started. I think the buzz around electrification in general, moved it into ag and it became a thing of its own. And it does have a place. I’m not going to say that electrification doesn’t have a place in agriculture, but it just right now, just from a pure physics perspective, not at the high-power levels.”

So, where does it make sense? Hindman says in lower horsepower equipment, Deere’s findings show electrification could be a solution.

“In rough terms, I would say roughly 100 horsepower and under, and relatively light duty cycles, lithium ion chemistry batteries can work,” he says. “You can package enough energy into the tractor to make that work. As you get into higher power levels? The answer to that is no.”

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During Deere’s CES keynote address, Hindman even addressed why electrification doesn’t makes sense in higher horsepower, heavier duty equipment.

“I talked about the 8R tractors,” he says. “When I ran the numbers on it, if you power that with a lithium ion battery today, it’s twice the volume, twice the weight, twice the mass, and four times the cost. That just doesn’t pencil.”

Instead, Hindman says Deere has found renewable fuels and renewable diesel is a better fit for higher horsepower application when you get into the carbon offset discussion.

“Things like renewable diesel, from soybean oil or canola oil, or ethanol as an alternative in a compression ignition engine, would be a more interesting solution at the higher power levels,” says Hindman.

He says the limitation for using more renewable diesel products today is availability. READ MORE

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