Counting travel time, it was a
four-day venture into what, in the estimation of several of the locals with whom
I chatted, was “a particularly hot and humid spell for this early in the
summer,” but at least there were no industrial grade mosquitoes to swim through
the moisture.
“OK,” you ask, “but was it worth
it?”
You betcha!
A lot has been happening with the
folks at Caterpillar, and they were eager to tell and show the 20-odd editors
and journalists in attendance what they had been up to in recent
months.
The centerpiece for the event was the
introduction of the D-7E, the electric-drive entry into the company’s already
remarkable line of tractors, raising for a moment the questions: “Why this, why
now?”
Well, 20 seconds of a 10-minute
demonstration comparing the D-7E with its sibling D-7R, provided the answers in
spades. In my humble opinion, the new machine is a flat-out winner—an opinion
shared by a group of five contractors and operators who have had the E-model for
a year or so. We will be speaking at length about the E in the upcoming issue of
Grading & Excavation Contractor,
so rather than steal that article’s thunder, I’ll hold off the details other
than to say that in many respects it behaves and feels as if it belongs in
Caterpillar’s D-8 family.
Is it a Hybrid? It depends on your
definition. If by hybrid you mean storing and then using energy from a battery,
as per Toyota’s Prius, then no. If you consider the advantages of hooking the
engine to a generator instead of a transmission and then powering the tracks
with traction motors—actions that allow the engine to operate within a far
narrower rpm band than its cohorts—then yes. Whatever you call it, the system’s
ability to deliver low-speed torque is terrific.