AGCO Rolls Out Autonomous Cart For 2025

SALINA, Kan. (DTN) -- AGCO staged its Interactive Technology Event here last week for a behind-the-scenes look at its autonomous solutions for grain cart harvest and tillage operations.

AGCO will have 10 autonomous tractors with grain carts in the field this fall across the Midwest. The company calls its new autonomous product "OutRun" and is planning for a full commercial rollout in 2025.

OutRun is a retrofit solution, mounted to the top of the cab and employing both doppler radar and lidar (light detection and ranging) for object detection. AGCO demonstrated the system at Salina on one of its own Fendt tractors and on a John Deere 8R tractor (the system works on Deere 8Rs going back to 2014).

AGCO plans to expand its autonomous grain cart and tillage system to other brands and said it will soon field an autonomous technology giving the combine operator the ability to manage more than one grain cart at a time.

That cutting-edge technology news comes as AGCO has announced layoffs. Due to weakening demand in the agriculture industry, AGCO Corporation plans to reduce the company's salaried workforce by about 6%.

At the conclusion of the event in Salina, assembled media had a few minutes to speak with AGCO Chairman, President and CEO Eric Hansotia and Seth Crawford, AGCO senior vice president and general manager of PTx, AGCO's newly formed technology business unit (PTx Trimble and Precision Planting).

Here is some of that discussion. It has been edited for clarity.

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QUESTION: Tell us about how AGCO autonomy will be applied as retrofit systems to AGCO brands and competing brands for grain carts in 2025 and then, beyond.

ERIC HANSOTIA: If you think how guidance grew, it wasn't the OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) that said, "We are going to deliver guidance." It grew through the retrofit business -- farmers would buy their machine and they would add guidance. And then it grew and grew until the (OEMs) decided to add it on in the factory. We think autonomy will be (accomplished) in the same way. Farmers don't want to buy a tractor with no cab that can only do autonomy. This is going to be something farmers are going to want to step into. (They're saying "I like (my tractor) to do autonomy for some of my tasks, and for other tasks, I don't need autonomy; I'd just like to use my tractor." That's why you see (at AGCO Tech Day) kits that can be added onto a piece of machinery to make it autonomous. For regular activities, like tillage, grain carts ... those can be autonomous. But if you need to plow snow, then (farmers will) use their tractor for that.

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QUESTION: AGCO is producing autonomous retrofits for grain carts and tillage. What about planters, combines and sprayers?

HANSOTIA: It's a combination of two things. As we automate more and more features, you have the option of pulling the operator out (of the cab). The other is farmer (confidence). If you look at the (AGCO Momentum) planter, it is super automated. But are farmers going to feel comfortable giving up (planting) control? With tillage, it might be, "If I get it wrong, I can go back and do it again. I can go fix it." But get planting wrong? There is nothing I can do to catch that back up. So, we see planting at the back end of this evolution not because of technology problems, but because of farmer confidence.

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QUESTION: What is AGCO's approach to highway autonomy?

HANSOTIA: No one in the industry is talking about autonomous vehicles on the road. For the foreseeable future, getting from field to field will not be autonomous. Automotive will get there way before we will. We're going to solve the in-field problems first. (Highway operation) is a way more difficult problem. (Equipment) that runs into a problem out (in a field), the default is (to) stop. Someone can remote in and see it. You can't do that on a road.

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QUESTION: AGCO's approach to autonomy is to design retrofit solutions for any brand. Is AGCO's all-brand approach to autonomy running into resistance from competitors?

SETH CRAWFORD: For sure, there are efforts to lock (competitors out of their systems). I think it took our team ... days to unlock and work through (Deere's system for combine headers). We had analysts with us here (today). They're thinking the other (OEMs) are going to shut (AGCO) down, that retrofits are not going to work. But farmers won't stand for it. That's how we get the data exchanges going, and that's what is going to drive interoperability. In the early days of guidance, you couldn't put (the same) guidance systems on all brands of equipment. Cease and desist letters were sent from OEMs to guidance companies. Now, that's all behind us. There are agreements and requirements in place that enabled that. And I think we're going to see it going forward.

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QUESTION: Regarding autonomy, will the adoption curve be similar to, for example, the rate of automatic steering?

CRAWFORD: My first answer is ask me in 20 years (laughs). But if you go back to guidance, when it first came out, it was tracked tractors going in straight rows. Then it progressed to wheeled tractors going in straight rows. Then it progressed to curves. Now we have automated turns, etc. You saw adoption rates go up as the user interface got easier and easier. I think (autonomy) will be similar. We will bring certain features for a very limited market at first, and we will perfect them for productivity, reliability and ease of use. Then, we (will) expand like as you saw today, to the combine grain cart, to tillage and then pulling a planter and then automating the combine. Every time we make an advancement, more and more farmers will likely adopt.

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QUESTION: With equipment sales paused or declining, what about demand for AGCO's technology package? Your retrofit sales?

HANSOTIA: Retrofit has never had a down year, even through the big downturn in (2014). Why is that? Even in leaner years, farmers still want to get more productive. So, I can spend $150,000 on my existing planter (with retrofits) or spend $400,000 or $500,000 on a new (planter). Retrofit has a strong argument in a down market. We try to make (retrofits) work with a one-year payback; now and then it spills over to two (years). But the point being we're not asking for a four- or five-year payback. We want it to be short, so that they get the return fast.

CRAWFORD: We think farmers can get more out of their fleets, even today. That's because our (U.S.) fleet is more connected than ever. It used to be you'd gather up your data, and you would meet with your advisers and plan for the next year. Today, it's not unrealistic that we (can see) in the moment, or in the near moment, that you are just suboptimized. We can either surface a message to a farmer, to say, "Hey, you can do A, B and C to get the full potential," or -- and I don't think we're very far off -- it's on the path to autonomy, where that is just done for the farmer. We help farmers see a problem they didn't know they had.

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QUESTION: AGCO has announced a 6% cut in its salaried workforce. What does that mean for AGCO and say about the industry?

HANSOTIA: Unfortunately, that's a natural part of our industry. Our competitors have already announced cutbacks. From time to time, the industry is very hot, and then it cools. It is incumbent on us to ensure that we keep our cost structure correct, to keep AGCO strong, so we can reinvest, make long-term investments in our technologies. We anticipated the downturn in the market last year, so we put in a hiring freeze. If someone leaves or retires, we reorganized the work with those already here. We try to take out as much non-people costs as we can. We want to minimize the cuts we have to make. But we want to keep on investing for the future.

Dan Miller can be reached at dan.miller@dtn.com

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