Actually to use a measurement of distance for something used in agriculture is absurd. It is measured in hours for a reason. Load on the engine determines consumption of fuel.
It would be as if you attached a PTO on your car to run a thresher so you could cut wheat. Lol I promise you that your car would do much worse than a tractor.
Added that with older equipment the ease of repair is likely another big draw. I work in the industry of bucket trucks. Like the ones used by electric companies to work on power lines.
One company "Altec" will not sell you parts for their equipment unless you are qualified by them in a school they administer.
You also must have the serial number, data plate information and be the owner. Plus you must have an account with them. You don't get to buy parts without any of these.
Now you can get secondary parts with other avenues.
They want their shit being fixed by them period.
Some of these trucks cost over 200k as well.
Wow, literally the dumbest thing I've seen here.
"Sealed maintenance-free modules." Not really a thing.
Glad you're living in your apparent future, but it's now now.
A phenomenon limited to regions with no environmental protection laws and no taxes on fossil hydrocarbon fuels. Those old tractors burn so much diesel oil that you can count it in liters per kilometer.
The long-term trend is clear. Sealed maintenance-free modules. The markets will favor those who prioritize quick and easy remote diagnostics and a quick and easy replacement of faulty modules without the need for special tools, special skills or even technicians. The more of the work incurring over a product's life cycle can be shifted to industrial robots, the lower is the real cost of the product. Traditional maintenance&repair technicians are insanely expensive, can easily multiply the cost of your machine over the years. As proud as the old men in the article may be of their skills, there is little economic value in artificially preserving the primitive conditions that made learning them necessary in the first place.