Ex-Tesla Motors official believes electric tractors, other innovations will virtually eliminate growers’ fuel costs.
Disruptive change is likely coming to California agriculture in the next decade, as technological improvements will lead to electric tractors and alternative-energy storage that will virtually eliminate farms’ energy costs.
So suggests David Deak, an expert in “disruptive innovation” who has served as senior development engineer at Tesla Motors, Inc., and chief technology officer at Lithium Americas Corp.
“I imagine running an almond orchard with zero cost of energy,” Deak told a luncheon audience Dec. 5 at the Almond Conference in Sacramento, Calif. “What’s really limiting us? Not time, because we have plenty of that. And it’s not money, because there’s some of that, too. It’s actually knowledge. We need new ideas, or taking some old ideas and putting a new perspective on it.”
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