Agco recently held a product introduction in St. Paul, Minnesota, hosted by Garry Ball, senior vice-president of engineering worldwide. Following the event,Western Producerreporter Ron Lyseng sat down with the person who has the most to say about new products from Agco.
Q:Your deal with Fendt gave Agco full rights to the new Sisu V-12 engine they’ve been developing. Will we see that engine in a North American tractor?
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A:We expect to have it fully developed in advance of Tier 4 final (emissions standards), which is January of 2014 for that class of engines. So it will show up in some of our equipment before that date.
Q:Drill manufacturers have been saying that they can build bigger drills if farmers had the tractor power to pull them. With 700 horsepower as the starting point on the V-12, can we assume it will find its first home in a tractor?
A:It will be in a tractor. But people don’t understand that engines are not the limiting factor if you want to pull 120 foot or larger drills.
From an engineering point of view, the limitation is a matter of putting power to the ground. That’s where we’re applying our resources.
Q:Is that to say that round rubber duals or any of the rubber track configurations are slipping in their responsibility?
A:We think our Trisix six-wheel drive tractor is a potential solution. It splits the power into multiple footprints. Each of the six footprints remains in contact with the soil at all times. This gives us greater tractive efficiency than any other vehicle configuration we’ve tested.
The left side is totally independent of the right side. And along each side, the front to the middle, and the middle to the rear are independent of each other.
Each wheel has a full range of motion up and down, regardless of what the other five wheels are doing. The drive system never allows it to go into a mode where all the power goes to one wheel.
There are other things we’re working on for the Trisix, such as a central tire inflation system so the tires can go soft in muddy conditions and then air up again for travel.
Another feature that’s proven to be quite an engineering challenge is the ABS brake system. It’s not as easy as taking the automotive technology and attaching it to a tractor. But we have that figured out now, so our ABS will be on the market soon.
Q:700 h.p. is getting into the bottom end of requirements for a forage harvester. Is there enough potential with this engine to bump it up an extra 200 or more h.p.?
A:At 700 h.p., it’s not enough yet for forage harvesters, but the engine can easily go that high.
For now, we’re concentrating on bringing our Trisix to the market well above 500 h.p. Perhaps the 700 h.p. range will be the starting point.
Another thing we’re working on is a dual fuel engine that starts on diesel, then switches over to alcohol while it’s working. When you’re ready to shut down, you switch back to diesel again.
It’s not as efficient as straight diesel, but if you’re looking for versatility and clean exhaust, it has a lot to offer.
We expect to have these engines commercially available in the future.
Q:In discussions with farmers on Tier 3 and 4 emissions standards, do you hear any preference for one technology over the other?
A:The farmers I’ve talked to about this don’t care in the least what the solution is. They care about the impact it has on their own farming operations. We felt that going to selective catalytic reduction (SCR) early in the game has the least negative impact on growers. Ultimately, this is the only way to meet Tier 4 final criteria. Adapting SCR now puts us that much further ahead of the other manufacturers and gives our customers a longer time period to ease into it.
