That’s part of the issue. But packing a tractor (or car) with electronics and computers does make it inherently harder to work on—even if it’s not locked down.
That’s part of the issue. But packing a tractor (or car) with electronics and computers does make it inherently harder to work on—even if it’s not locked down.
You need electronics and computers for cost-effective compliance with emissions requirements. Emissions limits have been one of the most positive government policies in my lifetime, saving millions of QALYs.
There's lots of other electronics in most modern vehicles, but the public manufacturer rationales for electronic lockdowns almost always point back to emissions concerns because they're so defensible. How do you separate them?
Perhaps this is naive, but I would imagine that farm equipment is a rounding error in terms of global emissions. Compare the number of tractors to the number of trucks...
I would have expected policy to be pragmatic here, with (relatively) relaxed emissions requirements, since an affordable and reliable food supply is in the national interest? Sounds like that's not the case
Emissions regimes are complicated, but US tractors fall into the much less restrictive off-road category. As a result, they're a disproportionately significant contributor to things like NOx. A long time ago the off-road category was >20%, and I'm sure that percentage has only grown as regulations have forced emissions reductions in onroad vehicles.
The vast majority of offroad equipment is not farm equipment but operates in urban environments. As NOx is an air pollution concern, there should be different regimes for rural areas versus urban areas. Construction equipment operating in urban areas is different from a tractor on a farm.
> but US tractors fall into the much less restrictive off-road category.
Sometimes. Above 26HP tractors do have to have emissions controls like diesel particulate filters now. Below that they don't.
Compare the number of tractors to the number of gas-powered lawnmowers. Which do you think gets better emissions?
I'd imagine it depends what kind of emissions you're measuring? Are we talking air quality or climate change?
Two stroke engines are pretty terrible in terms of unburned hydrocarbons and are disgusting for local air quality, which is why I'm glad they're being phased out in many areas.
I'd expect these tractors with I6 diesel engines to run pretty efficiently. I'd bet that the CO2 emissions from tractors are tiny in comparison from the emissions from trucks, fertiliser, and transporting the food.
Lawnmowers are usually four-stroke, with two-stroke engines reserved for lighter tools like string trimmers and chainsaws.
I would still guess that lawnmowers produce more emissions overall, given that there are so many more mowers than tractors. But they get used less often than tractors, so who knows? Either way, I agree with your thinking process, that the most economical way to reduce overall emissions is to focus on what are actually producing the bulk of emissions.
I don't know how much better cars and trucks can get, and for mowers maybe electric is the answer. Mine is gas-powered, and I know it runs rich. I would love to come inside after mowing and not smell like fuel, so I'm in favor of better emissions controls on mowers.
For tools electric is the answer. To take a chainsaw, the battery needs to be replaced just as often as with refilling the fuel tank. And with newer batteries you might recharge the depleted one as fast as discharging a fresh one. Not sure, just an assumption.
The future for tools is electric 100%.
my brother in Christ, electric chainsaws are garbage, have you ever used one? I tried one out to clear a huge 3 foot wide tree that fell on my property and yeah those things cannot hang with gas powered chainsaws in any way, shape, or form. No one is using electric chainsaws for cutting anything significant.
they may have a place in the distant future but in 2026, aint no way.
I haven't used a chainsaw in a few years, but the last time I did, electric ones with a cord were great. I switched from a proper Stihl chainsaw to a budget electric one with a cord, and despite it being smaller and sort of flimsy, it did cut like crazy, comparable to the gas chainsaw. And it didn't require ear protection, didn't annoy the neighbors and didn't make you smell like a chainsaw for two days.
Which electric chainsaw did you use?
I haven't used one, but I saw a youtube review from Project Farm. You can check it yourself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6FM_08066I
The DeWalt chainsaw was similar or better than Stihl, in a different series of tests, including cutting trough 10 inch logs.
There were other brands which would stall or be worse, so it depends on the brand.
I like the electric saw for limbing and felling small stuff because it's light and quiet but yeah for anything bigger than like 9" or extended work it's not the tool for the job.
These are regulations, not laws, and can be changed fairly easily. E.g the EPA recently changed the rules requiring NOx sensors and power downs, which were the most failure prone components of the system, while still mandating the actual equipment that scrubs NOx.
There's no particular reason why a mechanical device needs computers for emissions, as the emissions removing components can still be attached and managed via simpler means. All emissions removing components are effectively physical devices, whether you are talking about carbon filters or PCV valves or particulate filters or the urea fluids that are added to the fuel. None of them requires complex software in order to function. There is no reason why you need to buy an official John Deere branded emissions component that is software locked to tractor and costs 10x the price of third party components that do the same thing.
Also, there is a large room to maneuver between "I want a sensor with some circuitry in it" and "the entire tractor is a proprietary computer with locked down parts". The right to repair movement is not about removing tech, but removing unnecessary proprietary tech that is designed to prevent owners of devices from repairing those devices themselves or with third party components.
defeat devices aren't even complicated (they just fake the sensor data to ECU to get what owner needs). Locking down is pointless. Most people are not tuning their cars.
IF we wanted to do it properly, I'd imagine we'd have zero mandatory locks on ECU, just a little closed down black box with sensor installed in relatively tamper-proof way (of course there will always be one, the target is for 90% of people to not bother), logging away and maybe sending check engine light if it detects wrong AFR for too long.
Then you just check that on yearly MOT + any signs of tampering. Then owner is free to tune the engine as they want, provided the exhaust is still within the norms for most of the time.
What would you be accomplishing by trying to control end user behavior like that? As a manufacturer, there are certain standards your machine must meet when it leaves your factory. After that, a whole separate set of standards applies to users--e.g. EPA rules about emissions equipment tampering. As a manufacturer, though, you don't need to attempt enforcement. Leave that to the government, it's their job. Locked down, proprietary hardware and software doesn't ultimately achieve enforcement, it just makes tampering more difficult at the cost of serviceability. This is a dumb trade.
It's to contain the regulation into little box that controls the emission, rather than span it to entire system making it harder to repair. Then the EPA can have its "proof" the vehicle emissions are fine without compromising entire system for repairs.
I think you're asking for something magical, like when politicians go on TV and demand safe cryptosystems with government backdoors. Any time you try to do engineering work to hinder users from using devices they own it's a really bad time. That's the purview of law enforcement, not engineering.
> How do you separate them?
Mandate common interfaces and open hardware. I shouldn't have to buy a $10k dongle to sniff codes. I certainly shouldn't have to buy a different one for each manufacturer.
The legislation has to be robust. No dice if the dongle is generic and $20 like OBD2 in cars, but that on top of that there's a per-manufacturer set of codes that only licensed dealers have access to the software to read those special codes.
The situation today is at least better than it used to be before OBDII. I much prefer using a scanner to get codes then having to count flashing lights. And back then you'd still have to pay a lot for the manufacturer's code reader. The only advantage was the ROM was small enough to disassemble and reflash with new features. I would not want to do that on a car made in 2026.
Most of the codes on a large tractor are j1939. You still want the manufacture database because it often says 'x sensor voltage out of range - check the wiring harness in some not obvious location'
How do you define "electronics" and "computers"? Is a general-purpose computer running Java in the same category as a microcontroller running a tight loop with lookup tables for fuel and spark?
The problem: Once you have a microcontroller running a tight loop with lookup tables for fuel and spark, it's very tempting to make it run a tight loop with lookup tables for fuel, spark, and time since license renewal - and there's no outward difference between the two microcontrollers until one of them stops working. This is where regulations can help: if a manufacturer is afraid of a zillion dollar fine, they won't do that, even if the chance of getting caught is low.
While I agree in principle, we went two or more decades with cars powered by microcontrollers, and I don't recall any manufacturers trying to charge for licenses until more recently. There is something fundamentally different about the economy we are now in, I suspect.
I think the difference is that in the past, companies expected to be punished for obviously evil behavior, but now, they know they can go very far. Toyota got punished for stuck accelerators. Would they get punished for the same thing today? Tesla had stuck accelerators and we all forgot about it.
They're still pushing the boundary today. The Ring Superbowl ad where they announced they're watching you (but they said "your dog") 24/7 apparently got a lot of people to quit Ring, and you know they're crunching the numbers to see if the retention rate is worth the extra surveillance collection.
They charge for the diagnostic systems. Bigly. For example, Mercedes-Benz's Star Diagnostic System (SDS) is necessary for a variety of repairs and diagnostic procedures. There are varying degrees of workarounds and alternatives but none of them work quite right, or for every model/year/variant. It's not just the embedded system, it's also the interface to it. That's where the really ugly rent seeking crops up. And that's precisely why a tractor with no computers is attractive--not because the embedded software might try to ransom itself (although that's a reasonable fear) but because some horrible rent seeking corporate functionary will do their utmost to cheat you (or your mechanic) out of as much money as possible when it comes time to do any maintenance or diagnostic testing. No computers means that little bastard can fuck right off.
Exactly. Electronically controlled unit injectors are expensive--like 10x the price of mechanical ones. They're super cool, they can produce like 10 separate metered injection events per cycle. This is great for efficiency, noise, emissions, etc. But I can rebuild mechanical injectors with a bottle jack pop tester I made from $100 worth of parts and a bench vise. There's no wiring harness, no computer.. If the injector is getting fuel, has decent spray pattern, and is popping at the right pressure I know for certain the fuel system is good. With an electronic common rail system I need some expensive proprietary computer equipment to diagnose it, and there's no way I can build a test bench to rebuild those injectors.
You can't build a test bench to rebuild current OEM's electronic common rail injector systems that rely on expensive proprietary computer equipment, but there's no reason that has to be the case.
With a $20 CAN transceiver, documentation and/or config files from the manufacturer, and a bit of Python or something, you could absolutely bench test those electronic injectors. You might even be able to pick your injection events and adjust the metering, supporting the equipment as it ages. I'd love to see Ursa Ag put in a Megasquirt engine controller [1] or Proteus [2] or similar. You can run TunerStudio on a Raspberry Pi and show it on a touchscreen on the dash.
It's possible to build user-friendly, inexpensive and open engine and vehicle controls. You don't need to have zero electronics to not have locked-down proprietary electronics, you just need to build the electronics in the right way.
[1] https://diyautotune.com/products/ms3357-c?_pos=2&_fid=69f494...
[2] https://rusefi.com/index.html#proteus
Controls are one thing, but there's also the problem of generating 20k psi of oil pressure and some thousands of pounds of continuous common rail fuel pressure to actuate the injector. Compared with older MW, M, P, etc. styles it's a whole different beast. Also, we're talking past each other a little--I'm talking about diesel injectors, you're talking about otto cycle equipment ;)
Surely there’s room for a middle ground. There are plenty of 1990s-era engines that were excellent designs, had no meaningful connectivity to anything except their own ECUs, and could be produced new for not very much money. Some of them were quite modular, too — I know someone who took the drivetrain out of a salvaged Honda Civic and built an entire car (with no resemblance whatsoever to a Civc) around it.
If a tractor with a clean-burning, efficient $7500k engine could be purchased and were designed around the theory that, in 20 years or so, the owner could reasonably quickly replace the entire engine (with a first-party or aftermarket solution), would that be a good solution?
The common tech that has solved these problems nicely (IMO) is network transceivers: SFP and similar modules are built according to multi-source agreements. They contain all kinds of exotic tech, and they are not intended to be serviced at all, but (unless your switch or NIC has an utterly stupid lockout) you can pull it out and replace it with an equivalent part from a different vendor in seconds, and those parts can be unbelievably inexpensive considering what’s in them. (Single-mode bidirectional 1Gbps transceivers are $11 or less, retail, in qty 2. This is INSANE compared the the first time I lit up a 1Gbps SMF link. To be fair, this particular tech may require one to replace both ends if one fails, but if you can spare a second fiber, the fully IEEE-spec-compliant interoperable ones are even less expensive.)
It's not the craziest idea. A tractor is basically just a big hydraulic pump driving a bunch of linear and rotary actuators (commonly called "motors" and "cylinders"). Especially if it's got a hydrostatic transmission. If you design it in such a way that it's relatively easy to adapt different clutches and bell housings, maybe with a little driveshaft and u-joint between the clutch and the pump, you could theoretically accomplish something like this.
However one major sticking point is that (often.. maybe always?) the engine block casting is actually a structural component of the tractor "frame". Unlike e.g. a truck that has its driveline mounted between frame rails, a tractor's "frame" is its driveline . So this might add quite a bit of complexity and cost.
Eh to henerate a decent nozzle takes some precision lazer drilling (e.g.trumpf) or edm drilling (e.g posalux)and some grinding + a quality test bench. Its not that easy having good lowtech solutions either.
Yeah you're definitely gonna want to purchase nozzles. They're extremely precise and manufactured to very high tolerances. I've rebuilt plenty of 30+yr old injectors and haven't yet been unable to find newly manufactured or new old stock nozzles though.
EDIT: I did have some nozzles bored out a little bit once by a shop with EDM equipment. Terrible results, not worth it.