Electric tractor saves Wente Vineyards $ 2,600 per year

Obviously, this case study is anything but independent, and does not take into account factors such as investment costs, depreciation costs, maintenance costs, or other factors such as rising costs of fuel and electricity or weather conditions affecting battery life and fuel consumption.

In addition, Future Farming will soon conduct its own, independent field test with the Monarch tractor. But in the meantime, Monarch’s case study gives a nice indication of how an individual vineyard can cut costs by deploying an electric tractor.

Electric tractor vs diesel tractor

Working with Wente Vineyards, Monarch Tractor set up a field trial to quantify how much farms can save from going electric. The company ran a side-by-side mowing operation with Wente’s John Deere diesel tractor to find out. Both tractors ran a rotary mower, operated at the same time, in side-by-side rows of the same block.

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7.25hrs of run time

Monarch reported the state of charge and diesel fuel tank levels before and after the operation. The diesel tractor and the Monarch Tractor alternated rows until the mowing operation was completed, approximately 7.25hrs of run time finishing with 18% battery charge remaining

After comparing the battery usage of the Monarch tractor and the diesel usage of the John Deere, Monarch was able to quantify how much Wente Vineyards could save in fuel and emissions annually, with an average annual runtime of 1,000 hours per tractor.

Per tractor savings:

• Fuel cost Savings: $ 18.59
• Emissions Reduction: 242.14 lbs Co2e
• Estimated Annual Fuel Cost Savings: $ 2,655.71
• Estimated Emissions Reduction: 34,592.42 lbs Co2e

Fuel cost savings for 1,000 hour annual tractor runtime:

• $ 2,655.71

Diesel and kWh Costs used:

• $ /kWh – 0.1559
• $ /Gal – 2.975