John Deere boasts driverless fleet - who needs operators, anyway?
- Reference: 1736274613
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/01/07/john_deere_new_autonomous_tractors/
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After unveiling its first autonomous tractor at CES in 2022, John Deere returned to Las Vegas to [1]introduce four new autonomous vehicles and a second-generation autonomy kit capable of doing far more than tilling rows.
The new hardware, said CEO of Deere autonomy subsidiary Blue River Technology Willy Pell, will upgrade driverless Deere vehicles from plowing straight lines in open farm fields to navigating tight orchard lanes, quarrying, and mowing grass. Those new capabilities are thanks to enhanced camera arrays that extend the vision range from 16 metres to 24 metres, and Nvidia Orin GPUs that enable "full classification in milliseconds," Pell said.
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The enhanced camera range means tractors can increase their speed by up to 40 percent - autonomously - and it also enable them to use wider implements.
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"This new kit … will be able to do every job a tractor does on a farm," Pell said during a [5]press conference at CES media day yesterday. "This will alleviate farmers from acute labor availability constraints throughout the entire year."
Old McDonald had a farm, AI AI, oh
And there's the key behind these announcements: Deere is hoping to capitalize on what it said are widespread labor shortages in agriculture, construction, and commercial landscaping to push more autonomous hardware.
According to Deere, there are about 2.4 million farming jobs that have to be filled annually by a shrinking labor force, while 88 percent of construction contractors struggle to find skilled labor, and 86 percent of landscaping firms have a hard time filling open positions, too.
"There simply isn't enough available and skilled labor to do that work in a timely and efficient manner," John Deere chief technology officer Jahmy Hindman said during the press briefing. "Autonomy can be part of that solution."
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Not quickly, though: Deere told us that its new autonomy tech "will be with a limited number of test cooperators this year," and didn't directly state when any of the tech would be commercially available.
New autonomous vehicles showcased, with no mention of repairability
With Deere's second-generation autonomy objective of going beyond the farm field, it introduced four new variants of existing vehicles that will ship with new autonomy hardware: A 9RX tractor for large-scale agriculture, a 5ML tractor for air-blast sprayers in orchards, an autonomous 460 P-Tier articulated dump truck for quarry operations and a new battery electric commercial landscaping mower.
Because it operates in tight quarters, the 5ML will also include LiDAR sensors, and a fully-electric version of the tractor is also in development, though that's not getting the autonomy features yet. All of the second-gen autonomy hardware shipping with new vehicles will also be installable on older Deere devices, too, the agricultural giant said, through the eventual availability of "retrofit kits."
"Deere’s autonomy retrofit capabilities showcase the evolution and adaptability of Deere’s technology, ensuring that both new and existing equipment can benefit from the latest advancements," the company told us. No word on when those kits would be available.
But despite five Deere and Blue River leaders taking to the CES stage to discuss all those new autonomy features, there wasn't a single mention of repairability made during its presentation.
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The lack of any mention of Deere's ongoing right-to-repair fight, which has pitted it against [8]angry tractor owners and [9]the US government , is especially glaring given it was dubbed [10]the worst in the show in 2022 through a community choice poll run by right to repair advocacy group Repair.org.
[11]Uncle Sam backs right-to-repair battle against Big Ag's John Deere
[12]John Deere tractors get connectivity boost with Starlink deal
[13]Colorado sends agricultural right to repair bill to governor
[14]John Deere now considers VMs to be legacy tech, Ethernet and Wi-Fi on the brink
Deere's first-generation autonomous 8R tractor faced criticism from repairability experts in 2022 for limiting collaboration with the security community by restricting efforts to [15]examine its software for vulnerabilities—an issue when relying on closed-source code to safely navigate farms and other work sites.
The farm equipment behemoth was accused late last year by US Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) of [16]failing to live up to a right to repair [17]memorandum of understanding between it and the American Farm Bureau Federation, leading to the FTC beginning a probe into Deere for deceptive trade practices.
When asked about the repairability features of the new autonomous tractors, Deere didn't have much to say.
"Deere supports customers’ rights to safely maintain, diagnose, service, and repair their own equipment," the company told us. Given its track record on that support so far, your mileage, be it in a quarry, an office park lawn or a farm field, may vary. ®
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[1] https://ces2025.deere.com/press-releases/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z32yEnKFsntpXb-3spwd5wAAAMg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z32yEnKFsntpXb-3spwd5wAAAMg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z32yEnKFsntpXb-3spwd5wAAAMg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDzlPrPRBKU&t=2s
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z32yEnKFsntpXb-3spwd5wAAAMg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z32yEnKFsntpXb-3spwd5wAAAMg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/25/john_deere_right_to_repair_lawsuits/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/16/doj_deere_repair/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/07/worst_of_ces/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/16/doj_deere_repair/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/16/john_deere_tractors_get_connectivity/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/12/colorado_right_to_repair/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/22/john_deere_vms_legacy/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/17/john_deere_sfc_gpl/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/john_deere_repair_restrictions_warren/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/09/john_deere_repair_mou/
[18] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
So
The undocumented migrants who used to do your farm work have been deported so the only answer is to buy robotractors which might decide not to work.
Re: So
Luckily we were using millions of illegal immigrants to scythe wheat in the mdiwest and the robot tractors are going to pick tomatoes
As a farmer/rancher ...
... and a mechanic, and a computer guy, may I be the first to say "Do not want!"?
But if you want your tractor mindlessly chugging along, destroying itself (and other bits of your farm) because it wasn't programmed to STOP when it ran across a particular bit of mayham ... well, be my guest. Enjoy! Have fun!
At least you can be secure in the knowledge that Deere will be happy to repair their borken kit, but only if it's still under warranty[0], and if you'll transport it to their repair facility. Diagnosing the problem will be extra, and parts are either on 6 month backorder, or no longer available (or a two dollar part is only available as part of a complete $30,000 transmission replacement-unit).
During the meanwhile, the crop you were trying to get in when the thing went haywire still needs harvesting, not that that is Deere's problem, of course.
[0] If you pop a cover to eyeball the problem (hoping all it needs is a simple belt or chain or shear-pin replacement ... you've a crop to get in!), the warranty is void, of course.
The prospect of a runaway AI combine brings new potential to the phrase "mowing down your enemies"...
I'm sorry.
You are only licensed to use wheat with this device.
We have detected 3 seeds of Maize in the hopper. This system will now shut down, until the appropriate license is purchased and repair is carried out to remove the unlicensed produce
really?
Quote
""There simply isn't enough available and skilled labor to do that work in a timely and efficient manner,"
Strange that, you could say that about the widget making business too, along with application development or any job reqired a skilled, educated and motivated workforce.
Skilled : if you need skilled workers you pay to train them
Educated: you pay to educate them too
Motivated: Pay them well and you'll be amazed how much a 'fat lazy
Truth in Advertising
John Deere told the truth. It supports customers' right to repair their John Deere device(s).
John Deere does not support customers' ability to repair their John Deere devices. And without the JD secret sauces of diagnostic repair software, data, and custom tools, customers lack the ability to repair their JD devices(s). All according to plan.