John Deere, a name not usually associated with driverless vehicles, has debuted a new line at CES 2025. It includes driverless tractors (“To help with personnel shortages”) and driverless lawnmowers (to help when all your gardening people are sent home) and driverless dump trucks (“For help in rock quarries and mining”), and for once I think they’re on to something.
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Here is an interview with the Deere CEO after last year’s CES:
https://www.agweb.com/news/machinery/new-machinery/deere-pushing-electric-tractors-exclusive-interview-john-deeres-cto
The conversation was at the backdrop of CES, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas… Deere had a noticeably larger presence this year, even kicking the event off with the keynote address…
Autonomy was a popular topic at CES…Hindman describes autonomy the same way, saying Deere has already made a down payment on autonomy for the future with its autonomous tillage solution. He says the company started with tillage, as that was the easiest place to start.
“It’s the most practical from a technology perspective place for us to start, but eventually that’s going to become an autonomous planting opportunity, it’s going to become an autonomous grain cart opportunity. When we get tractor jobs finished, we’ll look at sprayers and at combines,” says Hindman. “Our goal is by 2030, in certain production systems, to be able to offer farmers a fully autonomous production system – from spring tillage and planting all the way through harvest.”
DB2
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This set of capabilities is precisely in line with the trend of less farmers, more land - i.e. corporate farms.
The barriers to entry are getting HIGHER. Not LOWER.
This allows more revenue to be diverted to land purchases and more technology (from the soil prep thru seeds thru machinery).
Barriers to entry and industrialization will push most out and few to alternative crops (blueberries instead of wheat or corn, etc.)
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Maybe they will find Jimmy Hoffa… (or NOT!!)
Heh.
Don’t bet against Elon.
ralph
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And fewer workers. Unless it’s work machines don’t want to do.
DB2
CAT has been doing this for years, starting back in the 1990s with mining heavy haul trucks. They have the largest fleet of autonomous haul trucks in the world. They’ve also expanded into semi-autonomous and robotic construction equipment.
JD has only been at it since 2022, they’re playing catch-up.
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But mostly in a different market than CAT.
DB2
True dat. There is some overlap, but nothing significant. Another factor that may have slowed them down…labor cost in agriculture and turf is much lower than mining and construction. There’s been a push for autonomous heavy equipment in mining and construction for some time now.
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As an investor, the proliferation of self driving is less important on a company by company basis than by the fact that it is an indicator of the technology “Crossing the Chasm.” The question then becomes, "Who can best monetize the technology?
Back in 2000 I lost a lot of money on satellite communications. The technology took almost a quarter of a century to “Cross the Chasm” making SpaceX a much safer bet than satellite ventures back then.
The Captain
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Didn’t the tractor & accessories already do most of this 100+ years ago.
This is just another step in the same direction.
Mike
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Short version: farming is being replaced by agro-industry. The underlying population distribution, infrastructure, and planning for much of the nation is obsolete and ever less cost-effective (not a normal farming term). This feeds the deep sense of aliention of rural areas.
The biggest shift is the death of the entire ancient mythos of farms and farming involving “home steading” in its ancient senses [see homestead - Wiktionary, the free dictionary] , idealized family life, and a profoundly human connection to food.
One of the most amazing things I ever did was work two days as a grain leveler in a harvest combine crew, standing with a shovel with in the bed of a truck taking on the staggering river of grain from the moving combine. I had to work fast, not lose my footing (never mind bumpy roads, this was a bumpy wheat field mostly on a slope) or I could drown in grain.
Memories of those two days still show up emblematically, mythically in my dreams — but it is a world-myth that is rapidly vanishing in the USA, and survives in Europe largely via significant subsidies supported by powerful political parties.
d fb
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People also lost plenty of money on fiber optic communications which was “the next new thing” at around that time. I can’t even remember the names of some of the companies that catapulted up just to crash right down a year or so later.
We are in agreement. The big difference here is the “last mile”. The John Deere Automation represents a further 60-90% labor reduction and a reduction in most labor peaks for farm work.
As a result, of this and the additional cost of the machinery systems, farms will be further than ever from “family”.
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Global Crossing?
The cause and the outcomes of the failures very different. While satellite communications had not “Crossed the Chasm.” fiber optic networks failed because prices dropped so rapidly they could not pay off the original investment leading to bankruptcy. Deep pockets bought up the infrastructure for pennies on the dollar and continued to provide excellent service. Investors, me included, lost money on Global Crossing.
The Captain
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Similar thing happened to shoe making.
DB2
Yes, indeed. But shoemakers were comparatively rare compared to farmers; and this is just the advance of mankind and all that stuff.
I am not bemoaning the shift, but pointing out that culturally the end of farming is huge. Farming gave birth to civilization. Farming was what almost everybody did, mostly, for most of the period of time of the creation of our cultural, legal, and spiritual systems. Farming was fundamental, foundational, to all that.
d fb
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Indeed. People who lived in cities were a small minority. Agricultural ‘industrialization’ is nothing new. The Joads left Oklahoma not because of the Dust Bowl, but because they were “tractored off”. One man with a tractor could farm 10x the amount of land. One man with autonomous vehicles will be able to farm X amount more.
DB2
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Humanoid robots will work three shifts without breaking a sweat, just taking a couple of charging breaks.
The Captain
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Those charging breaks have been highlighted as a big obstacle on large farms at harvest time. Transit time plus charging time cuts bigly into efficiency. Of course, longer working hours is the plus.
DB2