I am preparing to buy some land in a “pre-retirement” phase of my life. I am looking at 20 acres or so, so will need some kind of tractor to take care of it. I will most likely be using a tractor and some kind of a trailer all the time, an idea that I don’t like because the land will likely be not very flat. I started to play around with a pencil and paper…what came out was something that looked like a huge skateboard - 8’long by 5’ wide, with 6 wheels, only 3’ tall but with a backhoe at one end and a frontloader at the other. It only needs to travel at 6 mph fully loaded (10K pounds) but it needs to go backwards as easily and quickly as it does forwards. It also needs to be able to crawl - maybe .5 miles per hour - for long periods of time without melting the motors or blowing the controller.
Does this sound like a reasonable application for an electric motor?
My opinion is no. Your operating in an outside envrionment - Noise is not a factor. Diesel is the way to go. Diesel has around the clock availability, no requirement for recharging and is a mature reasonably priced and available commodity.
Yes, the tractor would have a diesel motor operating a generator, to power the electric motors and a hydraulic pump. The generator would have multiple uses - not only to power the tractor but to be a backup for my house’ solar system as well as operating a compressor in remote areas. It would serve as what is called a “power cube”, meaning that a multitude of machines would be connected to either they hydraulics of the tractor or the electricity. Similar to this [if you search on “power cube” and “tractor” you will see an example of what I am talking about. I cannot include the link here yet.]
but the powercube would be permanently mounted to a vehicle, which would make it easier to move around. The squareness and rigidness of the body will make it easier to support other devices. By using electric motors to propel the tractor I hope to gain some interior room inside the chassis, i.e. no transmission, no additional hydraulic lines. The motors will be inside the chassis, so will be well protected from the elements.