No, the farmer wants an electric tractor, possibly with a small diesel engine to charge the battery as needed. Fuel is an insanely high cost for farmers, and the complexity of the ICE systems means high maintenance and repair costs too.
That is what they want, but that isn't something they can get. A 100 horsepower tractor will be expected to deliver 100 horsepower for 15 hours without stopping (it is common to eat while driving, though you will stop for a bathroom break here and there). That means you need to have a 100 horsepower engine. Contrast a Tesla which is rated at 600 horsepower - but realistically only can give you that for a few seconds before you are at speed and then only needs to deliver about 20 horsepower. The batteries in a Tesla would run that 100 horsepower tractor for maybe an hour, so a 20 horsepower engine in a Tesla could easially extend you a lot of range.
I work for John Deere. I don't speak for the company. I can tell you that we are looking at electric for small tractors - there are a lot of people who only use small tractors for a couple hours per day (or less). We have hybrid tractors for some applications, but there are others that hybird isn't useful. The rules of chemistry tell us that a battery will never be useful for large tractors, and even small tractors it is questionable if batteries can ever be good enough to go all day (if you look at our electric mower the dealer is required to examine your lot to make sure it isn't too big). We have tried things like put a 1km cord on a tractor - I don't know what the status of that is.
I’d also think they could find a way to deploy a massive solar halo-type array since they’re working in big empty fields.
How can batteries work in a transport truck hauling massive weight long distances but we can’t figure it out for tractors?
How can batteries work in mining equipment and logging trucks (charged by small ICE engines on board) for long hours per day, not for tractors?
I am having trouble understanding what the fundamental differences are.
With such a setup and a bit of energy storage somewhere, electric vehicles look even more attractive.
There are already major pieces of mining equipment and trucks for moving mining material that operate on this technology. If it works for them I don’t see why farming would be more challenging.
Ok, ignore mines (though I don’t think this statement is universally true), you can find the same examples in forestry where equipment out in the bush runs on electric batteries being charged by small onboard ICE engines, and the logging trucks themselves are switching to this as well. None are on tracks.
Massive fuel trucks load up local tanks, smaller fuel trucks fill up from there and take it directly to the tractor in the field, a drive that can easily take an hour on its own. Tractors are slow and usually operating out in some distant field, you can’t bring the tractor to a central point every time you need to power up and you can’t run cables that long for those power levels. It’s really hard to beat diesel for utility.
Perhaps they could setup cooperatives that operate solar/wind farms to recharge their equipment?
The main factor slowing down the transition to battery electric is the cost of batteries. As this comes down, more equipment is going to be electrified. But especially heavy equipment needs a lot of power and therefor relatively large batteries. What's prohibitively expensive this year might be totally doable just a few years down the line.