French start-up Seederal recently unveiled its first electric tractor prototype during, just one year after announcing its first round of funding.
The initial 160 hp Seederal prototype shown here will serve as a technological demonstrator that, the company says, will help accelerate the development of the industry’s first “long-range” electric tractor. With the ability to work around-the-clock during busy planting and harvesting seasons, Seederal’s investors believe their tractor could help farmers take real steps towards decarbonizing their farms.
Seederal’s website claims its tractor’s unique, transmission-less design will enable to tractor to do 8-12 hours of continuous work per charge.
“We had to rethink the tractor entirely; we don’t just replace a thermal engine with an electric motor,” explains engineer Arthur Rivoal, Seederal co-founder and chief technical officer, when setting out the company’s vision for its eventual tractor design. “Electric tractors can reduce the carbon footprint by 15-20 tons a unit a year, the equivalent of the annual emissions of 17 cars traveling 12,000km a year, the average for a car in France.”
Seederal raised €11M in April to further accelerate the development of its electric tractor’s technical team. Additional recruitment, it says, will additional work on battery capacity to deliver on that promise of a full day’s operation on a single charge and the ability to charge the battery from 0-100% in just two hours on a DCFC.
Electrek’s Take
While the Seederal tractor is a long way from series production, its 160 hp motor(s) offer more than twice the pulling power of smaller electric farm tractors from Monarch and the seemingly defunct Solectrac. It’s the right size, in other words, for large scale industrial farms – and that alone should be enough to raise eyebrows at that other green tractor company.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Seederal, via Future Farming and FWI.