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| Engineers and Farmers Inspecting " Electric Orchard Vehicle" Photo Nelson Mandela University |
The farm vehicle is designed to be used on orchard farm to transport the fruit and thereby replacing the use of traditional tractor. The traditional tractor the orchard farmers use consume a lot of fuel and this vehicle is aim to reduce expenses of refuelling. The "Electric Orchard Vehicle" as it is called must also be useful in picking up fruit containers as they were filled by the pickers, spraying fruit, and even being able to pick fruit from the trees while standing on the vehicle. All these features are according to the need of the farmers and the fruit processors when discussion was held with them about their opinion on such vehicle.
Peter Smith, the head engineer at the Sundays River Citrus Cooperative pointed out that diesel engine tractors are used to tow fruit from the farms to the processing plant. They also used around the processing plant. These tractors were designed for farm work, were overpowered for the job and resulted in high fuel consumption. They were already using electric forklift trucks instead, and Smith asked whether the team at Nelson Mandela University could develop an electric vehicle to move the fruit. Electric vehicles are much cheaper to charge than refueling the equivalent in hydrocarbon fuels
The prototype was designed and constructed by a multidisciplinary team comprising Tim Smith, Ruth Serfontein, Elandrie van Greunen and Sinetemba Yamani lead by Trevor Stroud of Nelson Mandela University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and Peter Freere of the Department of Electrical Engineering after taken into consideration some other factors such as how long and how far the vehicle need to able be driven: This is said to be important, the vehicle uses batteries and they are expensive. They will need replacing after a very long use. Hence, keeping batteries to a minimum is important.
The Electric Orchard Vehicle was design to transport maximum of one ton of fruit in the trailer and can carry 500kg of any other load with seating for two.
The vehicle is also able to move up the 16 degree slope with full load and can work for 4 hours before recharging.
The vehicle had been demonstrated to farmers and operators but it was said testing was limited due to exhausted fund but it performance to carry recommended maximum weight of load was smooth and reliable.
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