Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., (M&M), a part of the $19-billion Mahindra group, displayed its maiden driverless tractor, which would be commercially rolled out by February 2018.
“We will deploy the technology on all three platforms — Novo, Jivo and Vuvo. But, we don’t know which one will come first,” said Pawan Goenka, managing director, M&M. “Over a period, the new feature will be offered across M&M’s range of tractors from 20HP to 100 HP.”
‘To change farming’
“This technology is designed to enable tractors to perform a variety of farming applications and operate varied implements. It is set to make farming more productive and profitable, reduce health hazards for farmers...and change the future of food production,” he said.
The driverless tractor technology would be implemented in phases. In the first phase, the technology would be driver assisted, followed by quasi-driverless and fully-driverless models by 2018-19, he said.
Developed at Mahindra Research Valley near Chennai, in collaboration with international technology players, M&M plans to increase the localisation level to 75% to 80% to offer products at a competitive price.
“Currently, it has a lot of imported components. Once in the field, we will see how more and more components can be made locally. Unless we increase the local content, we cannot meet the cost target. Our primary objective is to serve below 150 HP and those having under 50 hectares so that we can roll it out at a price which the farmers can pay,” he said. “Anything that is ₹1 lakh lower than the price for existing models would be ideal and fruitful,” he said.
Highlighting M&M’s 43% market share in the tractor segment, he said 30% of revenue came from overseas operations. “We would like to grow the export revenue to 50% and also increase domestic market share. This product would be exported to U.S., Japan, Turkey and Brazil.”
“Initially, it will be rolled out in India. Then, we will scale it up and take it globally. It would take about 12 to 18 months to fully scale it up, If we get 10% market share in five years, it would be a good number,” he said.
The driverless tractor can be programmed to carry out specific tasks through a mobile app and can also be programmed remotely to perform in the field, he said.
The tractor comes with unique features such as GPS based technology to travel along a straight line. The vehicle is able to orient itself along adjacent rows for continuous operation without any steering input from the farmer; automatically lifts the work tool from the ground at the end of a row; lowers itself for operations in the next row; and, steers to the next row without any intervention. It has safety features such as a geofence lock, remote engine start-stop and controls via a tablet.
