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POSS Headline: How I drove a Deere tractor from CES in Las Vegas to Texas TAPES 1/10 11:00am PT // 2:00pm ETAIRS 1/11 4pm STORY: Josh uses his iPhone remotely We’ll show you how to drive the giant tractor in Texas from CES in Las Vegas. The idea is to allow farmers to manage large tracts of land without having to physically be in the field all the time.
Autonomous driving capabilities are not just for the automotive industry. Agricultural equipment manufacturer Deere & Company (DE) showcased an operating platform for inputting commands to unmanned tractors at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2024).
John Deere CFO Josh Jepsen joins Yahoo Finance’s Akiko Fujita on the CES floor to demonstrate unmanned machines that will help aging farmers and achieve autonomous crop production goals by 2030. I did.
“It’s not necessarily about more people getting into agriculture, which means our machines need to do more, and the ability to automate and go autonomous is something that opens up a lot of doors for our customers. ” explains Jepsen. “Given how we do all the work that our customers do on their farms, and our ability to manage it on a digital platform that makes all of this so seamless, we are very well placed to do that. I feel like I’m in a good position.”
Click here for more of Yahoo Finance’s CES coverage this week or watch all episodes of Yahoo Finance Live here.
Editor’s note: This article was written by luke carberry morgan.
video transcript
[AUDIO LOGO]
Akiko Fujita: My name is Akiko Fujita. Here at CES 2024 in Las Vegas, I’m inside the John Deere booth with Josh Jepsen. He is his CFO of that company. He’s talking about automatic tractors. John Deere isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when you think of it, but it’s certainly a company that has undergone an incredible transformation, especially with its investments in technology.
Josh Jepsen: Yes, this is a significant opportunity to help farmers do more with less and make their lives easier. There are many challenges when it comes to accessing skilled labor and being able to perform jobs when needed. So in this example, an autonomous tractor that performs the tilling task will do just that.
Akiko Fujita: Okay, so now that we have an iPhone, let’s set it up here. Operate a tractor in Austin, Texas. There’s a monitor there, so we’re looking up here. How do I get started? By the way, this is the app that every farmer uses, right?
Josh Jepsen: Yeah. So this is John Deere’s operations center.
Akiko Fujita: got it.
Josh Jepsen: This is actually a digital platform for all agricultural information related to machinery health, agronomy, etc. But here you can control our automatic tractor. So you can see where it’s running and the statistics about it. However, if you press pause, it will run immediately.
Akiko Fujita: got it. Can I move on?
Josh Jepsen: Yeah. And we’re watching here. So you know it’s stopped.
Akiko Fujita: got it. I stopped here. Then press resume.
Josh Jepsen: And then I press resume and yes, I’m going to move on. A safety check will be conducted to ensure there is nothing in the area. Then we see the tractor take off and start driving again.
Again, this is about getting the job done when you need it, the quality of the job, and it’s very hard to quantify, but from the farmers who use this, it’s a quality of life. It can be said that there is a big advantage in quality. At the same time he has access to two locations.
So they can be with their families, attend sporting events that they would otherwise have missed, or simply have dinner with their families or do other work around the farm that they didn’t have access to before. can do.
Akiko Fujita: Talk a little bit about the demand there. Especially in agriculture, as I was talking about off camera, a lot of people are aging and there aren’t a lot of new entrants. right? This means that the shortage will become even more acute in this area. Robotics is becoming increasingly important.
Josh Jepsen: Yes, that’s right. So if you think about the work of farmers, it’s very important. We’re talking about food and fiber, which is really, really important. This does not necessarily mean that more people will enter agriculture. That means our machines need to do more.
And the ability to automate and go autonomous is a huge liberation for our customers. And given how we do all of the work that our customers do on their farms, and our ability to manage it on a digital platform that makes all of this so seamless, we’re very hard-pressed to make that happen. We feel that we are in a favorable position.
Akiko Fujita: So far I’ve pressed pause and started again. But actually, we’re talking so much about self-driving on open roads, but we’re trying to achieve something completely different here, because farming is not that easy. What other functions can I perform remotely?
Josh Jepsen: Yes, certainly. So there’s a chance. You can adjust settings. For example, you can adjust the speed with this. With other machines, you can actually adjust key settings, such as the combine or harvest time, to improve yield through the process.
These are all things we need to do to help farmers be in more places at once and make adjustments and changes to ultimately get the best results.
Akiko Fujita: got it. So let’s try it out — can I try adjusting the speed here?
Josh Jepsen: Yes, so at field speed. It can go up or down.
Akiko Fujita: OK, 8.2 mph. Let’s increase it little by little. I wonder if it will go up to about 6?
Josh Jepsen: Yeah, it’s probably there. Yes, yes, that seems reasonable.
Akiko Fujita: I’ll stop there for a moment.
Josh Jepsen: And now we go, yeah.
Akiko Fujita: got it. Is 5 miles typically where you want to stay?
Josh Jepsen: In that range, it really depends on the condition of the soil, whether it is wet or dry. And if we look at the display that we’re looking at here, we’re looking at the remote display, and just like you, like you adjusted, 5.8 miles per hour, 5.9 miles per hour. You can see that progress is being made.
Akiko Fujita: got it. I’m looking at this screen right now. Essentially, it looks like a tractor trying to drive out of the square. But we created the parameters, right?
Josh Jepsen: That is correct. So when you see that purple, or excuse me, red or pink line, that field is geofenced. Therefore, it will not cross that line.
Akiko Fujita: got it.
Josh Jepsen: And what looks like a white line is actually a road. So we go into the turn, and then we… and we continue.
Akiko Fujita: What do you mean — I understand. Now let’s put it back in place. Was it around 5.0 or 5.1 mph?
Josh Jepsen: I think so, yes.
Akiko Fujita: What about other functions you can use? Rotation speed.
Josh Jepsen: Yes, this has a preset turning speed, so it will always slow down when turning. As I said, we’re on the combine, we’re harvesting right now, and you’re the farm manager and I’m the operator, and you want to check on me from a grain quality standpoint. If so, you can actually adjust it. Combine key settings too.
What we’re seeing is that operations centers are becoming the central platform for actually managing operations. Rather than just looking back at the results, think about what adjustments you would like to make on the ground at this point.
Akiko Fujita: What can you do remotely now? And what’s the next step?
Josh Jepsen: Well, I think there were a lot of adjustments to the car today. Remote diagnosis is also possible. So let’s think about how we can provide better and better support to our machines. We are monitoring these machines. You can access our dealer network if you wish.
Therefore, you can actually identify problems before they occur. So we proactively do predictive and preventative maintenance to say, “Here’s the problem, here’s the code.” We believe the issue may occur within the next 3 hours. I will send someone to take care of it today.
Therefore, uptime is very important. That means your machine runs when you want it to run. Agriculture has very tight time frames to get jobs done, so we go to great lengths to make sure our customers are up and running when they need them. There’s also the weather and a lot of other things at play.
Akiko Fujita: I’m no agricultural expert, but clearly this is just one step, right? So, given that harvesting a crop requires multiple steps, how does John Deere increase their ability to do so? Are you looking to expand?
Josh Jepsen: surely. Therefore, we have a goal of fully autonomous production systems for corn and soybeans by 2030. So I mean the kind of cultivation that you’ve been controlling, as you can see here. But when it comes to protecting your crops, you move on to planting, spraying, and harvesting.
So our intention is to be completely autonomous with corn and soybeans in every job. This means you need to be able to fully manage each job and all its settings while it’s running.
Akiko Fujita: We’re talking specifically about being able to operate the tractor remotely, which means we’re digitizing the entire stack, right?
Josh Jepsen: correct. Yes, the operations center, the John Deere operations center, is actually a digital farm. Now that you have it, you can monitor it, see historical yields, and see how it is performing in the field in real time.
As you go along, you’ll find that if you’re actually planting, you’re geospatially tagging each seed, so you know where all the seeds are. We have a technology called Unema Vision. This allows farmers to actually put cameras in places they couldn’t see before and look inside the rows when they’re planting and understand the appropriate seed depth, seed depth. It is something to do. Proper spacing between seeds.
So the question is, how can we make it easier for farmers to perform these tasks and improve their outcomes? And we think that through the technology and digital aspects of what we’re offering, we can deliver better financial outcomes for farmers and better sustainability and environmental outcomes for farmers.
Akiko Fujita: And finally, we just mentioned that John Deere isn’t a name that used to be at CES, right? So you’ve become a regular here. The company is currently being talked about as being considered one of the largest robotics companies. Also equipment manufacturers.
Given all the technology that needs to be brought into the company, how much of the goals you talked about include acquiring more customers?
Josh Jepsen: Yes, certainly. So we’ve historically been quite vertically integrated. And over the last five to six years, we’ve strengthened our technology side through acquisitions. So we made a lot of acquisitions in the Bay Area of Silicon Valley, bringing not only technology but also capabilities.
And I think the magic for us is bringing these capabilities and integrating it with mechanical form experts and agronomy. This was really helpful. So I think we will continue to look to add to our portfolio not only organically, but also inorganically, where we see a step-function change in our ability to deliver solutions.
Akiko Fujita: Josh, thank you so much for speaking with us.
Josh Jepsen: Yes, thank you.
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