Demand Is Booming For New No Tech, Repairable Tractor (404media.co) 38
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: The secondary market for decades old, low-tech John Deere tractors has been booming for years as farmers have sought reliable tractors that they can actually fix without having to deal with John Deere's repair monopoly. A Canadian company has seen that demand and came up with a radical thought: What if they made a new, repairable, "no-tech" tractor to solve what has become a gigantic pain point for farmers? Alberta's Ursa Ag says that it has been inundated with demand after announcing its tractor, which costs roughly half as much as a Deere and has the benefit of not being a repair nightmare.
[...] Ursa Ag markets its tractors as "no frills" and "built to last." Ursa Ag's Doug Wilson told me that the company designed the tractor because of a need in the marketplace for a new machine that isn't loaded with tech and is easy to maintain. The company follows in the footsteps of consumer electronics companies like Fairphone, which makes a repairable smartphone and Framework, which makes modular, repairable laptops. The demand Ursa Ag has seen is part of the backlash to manufacturer repair monopolies and the injection of technology and internet-connected sensors and terms of use into even the most basic of gadgets. "I talk to farmers every day and I hear from farmers every day about how they went out and bought machinery from 1987 so that it wouldn't have a computer on it," Wilson said. "All of this came from a simple discussion with a customer who wanted to be able to turn [the tractor] on at the start of the day, to use it, and shut it off at the end of the day. It needed to work, so that's what we built."
Ursa Ag's tractor has been hyped in agriculture circles after Wilson showed the tractor off at a Canadian farm show and it was featured by Farms.com. Wilson said more than a thousand farmers have contacted him after that show, from roughly 30 countries. "I got a handwritten letter from a farmer in France who doesn't own a computer and wanted us to mail him information about the tractors," he said. He said the company has thus far made a couple fewer than 100 tractors but is working on tripling its production capacity and has seen a lot of demand over the last few months. "Given the number of my customers that carry flip phones, I would say there is consumer pressure to back away from some of the technology that is unnecessary to perform everyday tasks," Wilson said. "So that is definitely transferable to dishwashers and washing machines, refrigerators. Refrigerators that have screens on them that'll tell you what's inside. It's a little crazy."
"That high-tech stuff, the million-dollar John Deere tractor has a place. It has technology that is well worth the money," Wilson said. "But that technology is needed for 5 percent of what a farm does. There are so many applications for tractors on farms that don't require technology. The technology that goes into even a calculator is not required for most farming applications."
[...] Ursa Ag markets its tractors as "no frills" and "built to last." Ursa Ag's Doug Wilson told me that the company designed the tractor because of a need in the marketplace for a new machine that isn't loaded with tech and is easy to maintain. The company follows in the footsteps of consumer electronics companies like Fairphone, which makes a repairable smartphone and Framework, which makes modular, repairable laptops. The demand Ursa Ag has seen is part of the backlash to manufacturer repair monopolies and the injection of technology and internet-connected sensors and terms of use into even the most basic of gadgets. "I talk to farmers every day and I hear from farmers every day about how they went out and bought machinery from 1987 so that it wouldn't have a computer on it," Wilson said. "All of this came from a simple discussion with a customer who wanted to be able to turn [the tractor] on at the start of the day, to use it, and shut it off at the end of the day. It needed to work, so that's what we built."
Ursa Ag's tractor has been hyped in agriculture circles after Wilson showed the tractor off at a Canadian farm show and it was featured by Farms.com. Wilson said more than a thousand farmers have contacted him after that show, from roughly 30 countries. "I got a handwritten letter from a farmer in France who doesn't own a computer and wanted us to mail him information about the tractors," he said. He said the company has thus far made a couple fewer than 100 tractors but is working on tripling its production capacity and has seen a lot of demand over the last few months. "Given the number of my customers that carry flip phones, I would say there is consumer pressure to back away from some of the technology that is unnecessary to perform everyday tasks," Wilson said. "So that is definitely transferable to dishwashers and washing machines, refrigerators. Refrigerators that have screens on them that'll tell you what's inside. It's a little crazy."
"That high-tech stuff, the million-dollar John Deere tractor has a place. It has technology that is well worth the money," Wilson said. "But that technology is needed for 5 percent of what a farm does. There are so many applications for tractors on farms that don't require technology. The technology that goes into even a calculator is not required for most farming applications."
Capitalism wins again. (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's be clear: Attempting to prevent the customers that 'bought' your product from repairing them is NOT capitalism.
Capitalism is all about the free market. When you try to enslave your 'customers', forcing them to come to you to repair rather than competing on the open market for repair work, you are not a capitalist. You are at best a plutocrat.
People want freedom, not to be owned by the company they thought they were buying stuff from.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Capitalism is about raising money among investors (capital) and the legal frameworks to shield participants from liability.
Whoever told you that capitalism has anything to do with markets or free markets was either lying to you or parroting ignorance. Markets existed before capitalism.
Re: (Score:3)
Capitalism is about people benefiting from improving capital, which is basically private property rights.
Money != capital.
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I'm not sure what improving capital means.
Re: (Score:1)
Markets cannot exist without capitalism. A market doesn't make sense if there is no concept of personal ownership.
"I'll give you three apples for this orange please. Those apples don't belong to you, I'll take them for nothing. Goodbye."
Re: (Score:3)
Start reading your history book starting with a palace economy. Then check in every few thousand years until you get to capitalism.
As for personal ownership, also existed before capitalism. And the argument is a bit of a red herring as I neither confirmed or denied that there is personal ownership. Although I will assert that without regulation you can't have a fair and free market, you'll just end up with various iterations of self-dealing and Phoebus cartel.
Re: Capitalism wins again. (Score:3)
What on earth makes you think capitalism is the only system that involves the concept of personal ownership?
Re:Capitalism wins again. (Score:4, Informative)
you are not a capitalist.
Nothing is more capitalist than trying to maximize your revenue. It's someone else's job to prevent you from doing it if it harms the market. Regulation is either a feature of capitalism or a check on it, depending on how you look at it.
Re: (Score:2)
Regulation is a check.
According to control theory you have three outcomes for a process, it grows unchecked to infinity (or until physical boundaries are reached), it stabilises, or it goes to zero.
For some reason, people think that because of 'money' this does not apply to these processes.
A stable process is a regulated process. That doesn't mean regulation is simple.
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Consistently amazed that Capitalism(TM) only has good characteristics and apparently no bad.
The only other thing that seems to come close is religon.
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Let's be clear: Attempting to prevent the customers that 'bought' your product from repairing them is NOT capitalism. Capitalism is all about the free market.
If we're going to be clear, "capitalism" doesn't have a clear definition. It's used differently in different contexts, often with the meaning of "not communism."
It's better to use a different word. For example, you could have said, "The free market wins again" since that is what you actually meant.
Re: (Score:2)
"Ya meh taek are lives..... but ya'll never taek are freedum!"
*shakes fist in air*
*buys Canadian tractor*
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but that is the end state of capitalism. Capitalism rewards business that can build competitive advantage, which includes barriers to entry for competitors. You may start out with a "free market" but most of the participants in that free market are trying as hard as they can to slant it towards themselves - to make it less free- and those that don't tend to lose out to those that do.
You can have laws to regulate the market, but wealth confers power and power can be used to shape the laws as well as fi
How Do They Make Money? (Score:2)
So many questions.
We've been told that without subscription models, you can't run a business as you'll never make the money.
We've been told you can't get funding to start a business without a recurring revenue model as no one will buy in.
Of course we all knew the reality. Its nice to see a company actually do this knowing their revenue won't be maxxed out, but it will still be a profitable business.
Can we get a car like this? Can we get congress to pass a law that says we can have a car like this?
--
Commo
Re: How Do They Make Money? (Score:1)
What were more likely to see is Congress passing a law to somehow ban this.
Re: (Score:2)
This. This is how Congress kills Capitalism in the name of "Freedom, Liberty and American Values". As Raghuram Rajan put it, we have to save "Capitalism from the Capitalists."
Re:How Do They Make Money? (Score:5, Informative)
Farmer here.
Yeah their profits won't be as high as John Deere. But they can still make at least $20k-$30k profit on each tractor they sell. By the way mainline dealerships don't make much money on new tractors either but they do make a lot of money on used sales. Anyway they won't be selling tremendously high volumes (they simply don't have the capacity to assemble them very quickly), so they aren't going to get fantastically rich doing this. But they are filling a niche.
I've actually seen these tractors and sat in them. They are bare bones machines. Cab comfort is reasonable. You can install a third-part GPS guidance system in them. Transmission is simple but rugged, and a common transmission overseas. Completely manual with a high-low power shift. Engine is claimed to be a genuine Cummins 8.3L (more on this below). Hydraulic and 3 pt controls are all manual linkages. Would make a good chore tractor. They seem to be decent quality.
I wish they'd be a little more forthcoming about some things, though. They don't make the tractor; they assemble it. With the possible exception of the engine, the entire thing is manufactured in China with the color and decal scheme they chose. You can find this same tractor from numerous vendors on Alibaba. I have heard, that they are using genuine reman engines in these tractors.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree there is a market for a mid-power tractor like this. As long as it has hydraulics for the front-end attachments, a decent 3 point control for the back, and a reliable PTO shaft for powered devices, I think many small farms would welcome something like this.
The closest a typical homeowner would get to these would be a riding lawn mower. If the brake pedal breaks, do you want to call Troy-bilt, wait a week for a custom brake assembly, then wait for the technician to come calibrate the brake pressure
Re: (Score:2)
Can we get a car like this? Can we get congress to pass a law that says we can have a car like this?
Well, this tractor is made in Canada... so it'd be parliament that would pass that law.
But, if (as I assume) you are located in the United States - there's no guarantee you can even get a tractor like this.
I was I was a lobbyist (Score:2)
Because Deere is going to be paying big bucks to lobby every government in the world to apply strict emission control standards on tractors that will be impossible to meet without all their electonics.
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I don't think electronic ignition and pollution control is the computer they are talking about here. That's been pretty fare for the past 30 years now. It's the electronics tied to the mother ship that is not included.
Re: (Score:3)
pretty "standard" fare
jeez, how about an edit button /.?
Re: (Score:2)
The Ursa tractor has a Cummins 8.3L engine in it that already must meet emissions standards. The engine itself has an ECU and if it does have DEF dosing, it's done by a Bosch ECU. But that's all self-contained. The rest of the tractor has no electronics except 12V to run the AC, lights, etc.
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Oh and many diesel shops can easily remove the DEF system and reprogram the engine ECU to run reliably.
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Let's hope (Score:2)
Let's hope this becomes a common trend amongst all manufacturing sectors.
Re: but farmers like to be lazy (Score:1)
Um, if there's one group that's not lazy, it's farmers.
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Re: (Score:2)
As a farmer I can say you're not wrong there... It's just that our kind of laziness involves 16 hour days.
For what this Ursa tractor would be most used for, which would be a chore tractor lifting bales, etc, GPS isn't needed. For other kinds of farm work, though, adding GPS to it would be a given. There are many options for adding GPS guidance, so that's not a problem.
I want a passenger car like that (Score:2)
No infotaiment or GPS, maybe an AM/FM radio. Optional cruse control. I'd live with hand cranked widows, but some sort of air conditioning would be nice. Pick some second party sourced drive train and engine. Only open source microprocessor hardware/software.
Time to take my meds because I'm clearly hitting a manic phase and need to come down.
Re: (Score:2)
It's complicated (Score:3)
As a farmer I can say there is some definite demand for a tractor like this. However I am skeptical that expressed interest will translated into demand for thousands of units. Farmers are an odd bunch. They complain about the high cost of machinery, and the right to repair, but in the end things like cab comfort and ease of operation (CVT!) carry a ton of weight. Farmers say they hate all the electronics, but they really love GPS autosteer and features like automatic gear selection and throttle control, or the ease of using electric-over-hydraulic implement control.
Some years ago I was interested in the Kirovets K744 tractor made in Russia. It's widely used in FSB countries and is designed for ease of maintenance and repair, and it's a proven machine. But even without Putin's war that pretty much killed access to them, in the end even at half the price of an equivalent north American machine, it was still a difficult sell here. The transmission controls were very different from anything we're used to, and some of the design was just, well, soviet. The dealer was very responsive, but they covered a very wide area, which is a concern compared to the mainline dealerships.
Ursa will sell some tractors, no doubt. Hopefully word of mouth will tell us that they are reliable and useful tractors.
Itâ(TM)s not Canadian made (Score:2)
Surely Open Tech is better then No Tech? (Score:2)
Who knew (Score:2)
People want tech that just works and does not stand in their way and make them jump through hoops.
GPS (Score:2)
I've a friend who runs one of those Gazillion $$$ combines. He's said it before," I NEED air conditioning, and GPS. Everything else is BS."
We were talking about the BS JD pulls and his comment seemed to fit this room. I don't know anything about farming or tractors but that stuck in my head.
Re: (Score:2)
GPS is an overloaded word. It could just be a map with position, or it could be a level 2 self driving system which can maintain synchronization with a grain cart ... in the latter case it's already massively automated and everything else is in the margins.