Or this is happening precisely because the current manufacturers are confident they've managed to close all entrypoints. A "simple tractor" probably has no chance passing environmental and other regulations.
This has been solved in trucking by “glider kits.” It’s basically a way to ship-of-theseus your way into a “new” truck without meeting emissions, since you have an old, meticulously rebuilt engine (but still grandfathered).
Emissions compliant diesel engines are available as off-the-shelf parts. It shouldn't be too hard to adapt an existing tractor design to fit a truck engine.
>Seems like a market opportunity for someone to start building simple tractors.
That would create a opportunity for the EPA to shoot your dog. This isn't a market you can just enter. Manufacturing goods that have to last for decades doesn't start up and scale up like software. It would take so much time to build up a competitor that the incumbents would have more than enough notice to crush you.
The farmer in the article got what he considers a good quality used tractor for $18,000. How will you convince him to buy one from your new, untested company?
I don't know much about tractors, but I don't think you can go much lower than $18k and still make your costs back.
I really wonder how big of a problem with tractors, considering there really isn't anything out there for this issue.
Looking at car world, for cars even with locked ecus, you can get things like piggyback or standalone units, transmission controllers, awd controllers, dynamic suspension controllers, and so on, because there is a huge market for it both in amateur racing and enthusiast modification, and most of these void warranty.
Seems like this would be pretty straightforward to do - in the end, all mechanical equipment follows some raw control signal that easy to intercept and modify. Legally, you can even get around most restrictions by selling programmable modules and then making the software open source.
My guess is that paying John Deer for whatever they ask is not a big deal financially to most (although probably not all) farmers.
"Midwest farmers face a crisis. Hundreds are dying by suicide."
"But U.S. farmers are saddled with near-record debt, declaring bankruptcy at rising rates and selling off their farms amid an uncertain future clouded by climate change and whipsawed by tariffs and bailouts."
