You're welcome! Thanks for posting over there that you were starting a new thread so I could come find this.
Any particular reason for 48V? I think you might do better at a higher voltage. V=IR and P=VI=I
2R. So, for the same power, if you double the voltage you halve the current. Wire size needed is based on current, so you can save yourself a lot of money on copper by using a higher voltage.
I have seen tractor conversions that were done with plain old lead-acid car/marine batteries, but you're not going to get the amount of work done that you want to with that setup. You're probably going to be a lot happier with a conversion that uses EV batteries - If you watch this video, they talk about a site where you can purchase those:
I've been kind of keeping an eye out for the right size tractor but with a bad engine so I can do a conversion. Unfortunately, the engines on the JD SCUTs seem to be fairly bulletproof so they're fairly rare.
Engines, transmissions, fuel tanks, etc all take up quite a bit of room. If you fill the available space with batteries, you can get a reasonable amount of work done before charging.
Was?
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That could be bad!
Unfortunately, I think the venn diagram of the tractor crowd and the EV crowd has a VERY small intersection. Most of the electric stuff I've seen is either not particularly practical from the tractor side of things (designed by the EV circle), or has craptastic specifications as if it was designed to fail (designed by the gearhead tractor circle). As part of the small intersection of the two, I am convinced that it is possible to make a great electric tractor, but unfortunately, nobody wants to do it. It's following the same pattern as the early days of our current EV resurgence: New manufacturers who want to make it happen but don't know how to make the thing they're trying to replace, and existing manufacturers who are actively trying to make it fail.
Who wants to invest in my EV tractor startup? It'll be the Tesla of the tractor world...
Again with the past tense - Is Solectrac out of business? I can only find things about them restructuring, which sounds like it was mainly eliminating the dealer network deal with a different company. As far as I can tell, they're still going and are now selling direct to consumer which makes a lot more sense than trying to put demo units out at dealers when you're only selling 15 per month and your goal is 30 per month.
Biggest shortcoming, IMO, is the price. I don't think the tractor market is large enough to get the same economies of scale with battery production as the on-road EV market. The only way to make up for that is to use off the shelf components or make a deal with an EV maker or EV battery producer, and that doesn't seem to be happening yet.
So, JD has a prototype they called the "1RE" which seems to be an electric 1 series but they've been very quiet about it.
However, I couldn't find anything about JD having a fire? DeWalt had an electric zero turn burn up at a show a couple years ago it looks like, but I haven't heard of an issue with JD. Mainly because I don't think it even has batteries on it yet.
I sure did find a lot of fossil-fuel John Deeres burning up though!
I sure hope you're right, and I hope they don't suck.
My wishlist for an e-SCUT:
1) Compatibility with mechanical attachments. That means a 540RPM rear PTO, a 3-point hitch, and hydraulics.
2) Availability of electrical attachments. Things like mid mount mowers and front snowblowers tend to be proprietary anyway, so might as well make it electrical and use the advantages that gives you.
3) Ease of swapping attachments. This is the whole reason the John Deere stuff is interesting to me, they're the best at this right now. The more versatile a tractor is, the more useful it is, and the less time it takes to swap attachments, the more versatile the tractor. I would love to be able to mow the lawn, use a broom to de-thatch the lawn, pick up the clippings from both of the above, move several cubic yards of mulch, grind a stump, dig a hole, and use a grapple to move tree carcasses around, all in one day.
4) Varying battery capacities, and the ability to move and swap batteries to some extent. I feel like there should be an on-board battery that can take care of easy-medium work. There should also be an optional "battery bucket" that functions as a weight bucket, can be mechanically lifted by the rear 3 point hitch and whatever lift is available at the front of the tractor, and can both recharge the onboard battery during use as well as provide power to run the tractor.
5) Liquid cooled batteries and a smart Battery Management System for longevity.
6) Preferably, able to be charged using a NACS plug to be able to take advantage of existing EV charging technology, and the chargers I already have in my garage.
7) Reasonable charge times, preferably such that having a pair of Battery Buckets would allow for something close to unlimited runtime (charge 1/use 1).
8) A reasonable price tag. The purchase price can be higher than a fossil fuel equivalent if necessary, but the fuel savings alone need to pencil out to a payback within the first 5-8 years. If you're an existing manufacturer, you don't need to reinvent the wheel, just put a new powertrain on an existing model (like JD is apparently doing with the 1RE).