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Kubota Autonomous Concept Vehicle

19:28
23:13
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The creator speaks with Bret from Kubota about their KVPR (Kubota Vision for Future Farm & Rural Life) concept vehicle. Bret explains that this is a concept vehicle, not intended for immediate market release, but designed to push technological boundaries. He reveals that the vehicle is all-electric and features a 'transforming robot' design that can change its width, length, and height, and automatically adjust its center of gravity when attaching implements. While the current prototype is electric, Kubota is also investigating alternative power sources, including hydrogen fuel cells and standard hydrogen combustion engines, for future commercial applications. The creator questions the shift from Kubota's renowned diesel engines, but Bret clarifies their commercial autonomous vehicle already uses a 105HP diesel engine, indicating a hybrid approach to future power solutions.

Goal: The creator examines Kubota's KVPR (Kubota Vision for Future Farm & Rural Life) autonomous concept vehicle, discussing its electric power, transforming capabilities (width, length, height), and future integration of existing and new technologies like hydrogen fuel cells.

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  • Kubota KVPR Concept Vehicle

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what they got cooking. All right, Brett. Is this a prototype that's never going to happen that just looks like a great model or is this something that may actually come to fruition and does this operate? >> Yeah, with our other concepts, what we're doing here is pushing the boundaries of our technology. As it stands, this is a concept vehicle that's not intended to come to market. But as we've done in the last 2 years with our concept vehicles, we've taken elements of that and at the show here, we actually do have a commercial vehicle that's a autonomy that's based on some of the technology of the past. So the technology in here will will be uh brought to commercial uh use in different forms. >> What are they thinking going to power this? Is this going to have an actual diesel engine or is this going to be all electric? This version's all electric. And so the the technology here is about a transforming robot. So we're reimagining what a tractor is. This vehicle can change its shape by changing its width. It can change its length and it can change its height. >> Really the changing the uh width allows it to also change its center of gravity. So if you're putting on an attachment, it can automatically center that change the center of gravity. Oh, I So, what I love is the fact that you're experimenting on something like this and taking elements that we may see into a practical application for construction equipment and agricultural equipment down the road. >> And that's what we're doing. We're really looking at feedback from the customers. It's part of what we call our innovation cycle where we take technology out to the customer, get their feedback, iterate and uh iterate on that and then bring the right solution to our customers. >> Okay, last question. Kabota is famous for its engines. >> Famous for its engines, diesel engines. >> It it really is. Why would you not just automatically stick one of your famous diesel engine? I mean, when I look around, Takahuchi runs your engines. Kado runs your engines. There's so many other pieces of equipment that people don't realize. Go to you guys for an engine. Why don't you just stick with what guys want? Guys like us, we want diesel. We want the black smoke. We want the coal. We want not plug it in and go. >> No, we love our engines, too. And uh in the last 2 years, we've had EV vehicles um autonomous EV vehicles. And what we heard from our customers is they like the…

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