1/š§µCame across some old USA data that shows rise of new energy technology (ICE tractors + petroleum) and decline of old (animal power).
Smooth lines disguise plenty of market speed bumps, eg Great Depression starts in 1930.
Don't fret about EV sales. EVs = tractors
#Alberta
2/The first "tractors" were powered by steam. They date back to the early 1890s.
In Western Canada, they were uneconomic for plowing, but very good at breaking new farm land and powering the big threshing machines that toured farms during harvest.
Sales declined in 1920s.
3/Around 1908, first "big gas tractors" sold in the West.
Still uneconomic for 1/4 section farms, a few big commercial farms experimented with teams of them. Economics weren't much better than steam tractors.
Never caught on. Kinda like some of the early EVs that failed.
4/This is the tractor that in 1918 changed everything.
Henry Ford's "Fordson" was small, affordable ($600USD if I remember correctly), well designed and built (used auto technology).
For the first time, a tractor competed with horses for plowing cost per acre.
5/1920s farmers didn't know much about tractors, so the USaskatchewan held "tractor schools" on farms across the province.
Profs AE Hardy and Grieg helped many early adopters successfully integrate "power farming" into their operations.
6/"Combined threshers" were another important tech milestone.
They were crude, unreliable, and expensive, but they lowered the cost of threshing per bushel by freeing farmers from contract threshers.
Many a bumper crop was lost b/c of rain or snow waiting for a threshing crew.
7/Important innovations during the 1930s sped up adoption.
Rubber tires arrived in the early 1930s.
Can you imagine how awful it was to ride a tractor all day with steel paddles welded to steel wheels?
8/Plenty of smaller, forgotten innovations from the 30s and 40s made tractors and combines ever more efficient.
One of the most important was the 3-point hitch and hydraulics, which made hitching implements to the tractor so much easier and safer.
9/Jump ahead to the 2020s, a 100 years later.
Tractors cost north of $300,000 and they look like this behemoth.
My wife's cousin farms 3,000 acres near Nipawin almost by himself, just a bit of family and hired help at harvest.
Behold the future of EVs.