It’s all about the batteries.
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Not only are yellow iron going electric, they’re going autonomous as well. We already use unmanned bulldozers in high risk situations.
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I would think for cranes and most other heavy equipment the added weight of the batteries would be advantageous.
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All part of the plan…
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“Bulldozer…stop”
“I can’t do that, Dave”
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Yep. Plus the much lower center of gravity.
“Who should I throw 'em at?” – Yankeefan
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Autonomous farm equipment has been around for awhile too.
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Soon, they’ll control the entire food supply. Then we’re all screwed.
So many jobs are going to be lost to this, as well as robotaxis and autonomous trucks.
Just wait until AI starts replacing all the cushy insurance and O&G jobs.
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I am very happy to be ticking off the last few years before retirement.
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…and I wish I had a robot to do a bunch of stuff at the ranches.
Someone will still have to mine the dilithium crystals.
DARPA is already working on it. Well, the underlying tech. Their advanced mobility teams are working on electric motors that drive the vehicle and convert from rolling wheel to tracked vehicle in 2 seconds. When you see it happening, it’s almost too hard to believe. Transition from the military industrial complex to commercial applications is less than 10 years these days.
Start at the 2-minute mark.
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A noted military and engineering genius weighs in:
Once you fill up an ICE with fuel, you never have to do it again.
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Especially those M1 turbine engines that get about 5 mpg
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It is odd bragging about the machines you use to kill people en masse being environmentally friendly.
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Well, in theory you spend a lot more time training than killing. But I imagine that when you get down to it, armored units are probably going to have to deploy with gas/diesel-powered generators alongside. I don’t know if the effective MPG from such a setup will be better or worse than using an ICE in the first place.
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