Autonomous tractors recently got a boost. In June, tractor manufacturer New Holland, a subsidiary of global agricultural machine maker CNH, announced a partnership with Israeli startup Bluewhite, an autonomous tech company that kicked off in 2017.
Under the agreement, New Holland tractors will be able to get Bluewhite one-day upgrades inside dealer shops to become fully autonomous tractors. Also, the two companies will work toward having Bluewhite technology installed inside new tractors made in New Holland factories in 2026.
Bluewhite has already been upgrading 18 types of tractors from various manufacturers and has seen 60,000 hours of commercial operations across 150,000 acres, mainly on the West Coast of the US with a variety of crops, according to CEO Ben Alfi who spoke with Fierce Electronics.
Like other major tractor makers such as John Deere, Bluewhite recognizes the global need for farm labor and the growing financial pressures on farmers. “There’s a huge need with not enough workers. The costs of chemicals are also rising. We see a huge need, not just among early adopters but farmers who want to use autonomous vehicles as soon as possible,” Alfi said. “We are optimistic and see more and more customers working at scale. There’s no discussion about whether autonomy is needed or should it happen, but how fast can I adopt it.”
Bluewhite’s technology relies on Nvidia GPUs as well as AI, incorporating sensor fusion and simulations produced internally by a staff of 150 workers, including 100 researchers and engineers. US operations are centered in Fresno, Calif. In January, the company announced $39 million in Series C financing led by Insight Partners bringing the total raised from various investors to $70 million, according to Alfi.
The autonomy relies upon edge compute capabilities as well as GPS, lidar and cameras, but tractors can operate even without connectivity. Farmers can operate the tractors from a variety of personal devices, even smartphones. Alfi said Bluewhite engineers devised ways to use off-the-shelf sensors from the auto industry while devising classic algorithms for sensor decisionmaking.
Safety is the top priority. “Ag is very dangerous and you have to keep people from chemicals during spraying,” Alfi said. Across 60,000 hours of deployment, “there have been no injuries to anyone and no tractors damaged.” Simulation tools have been used to create object detection, including the ability to recognize ditches and alternative routes for a tractor to proceed.
The high cost of some autonomous tractors have scared away some farmers, with the most sophisticated models going for $500,000, with various payment models proposed by competitors. Bluewhite is not charging by the acre or the hour, and instead offering a yearly subscription fee for the autonomous capabilities added to hardware costs. It typically costs $100,000 to operate a tractor in California for a year, but Bluewhite believes the costs can be far less.
“Our goal is to showcase 80% cost savings over labor, vehicles and chemicals,” Alfi said. With autonomy a farmer doesn’t need as many tractors, since a single autonomous tractor can be used many hours in a week and adapt to various jobs such as planting, weeding and harvesting. “Our way, a grower can choose the vehicle and he operates it without looking at his watch.”
Alfi’s view is that the future for autonomous farming is bright, an outlook shared by Bluewhite’s investors. The company sees an $11 billion market for autonomous tractors by 2030, a projection made by Allied Market Research. Still, the question remains: how much of that global pie can Bluewhite and New Holland with parent CNH bite off?
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