From the rolling green fields of Moline, Illinois, to the dusty construction sites of New York City, John Deere vehicles are everywhere. That’s part of the reason that the company invited Fierce — and other select media — out to their Davenport Works factory in the Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa to show how they had automated the factory floor, and how the parts and vehicles get made.
Because of safety concerns and the loud working conditions in the factory itself, I wasn’t allowed to take pictures onsite, but Deere also toured us around their Coal Valley, Iowa, construction site, the John Deere Pavilion and the company’s archives. So we took plenty of pictures of John Deere Machinery past and present.
Scroll down to see our tractor-ific eye candy.
Coal Valley, Iowa
Construction vehicles aplenty being driven around the Coal Valley site.
John Deere archives
At the archives, I saw the Badam-Experimental Autonomous Tractor. This tractor was built and tested between 2009 and 2012. Deere launched the world's "first commercially available autonomous vehicle in 2022."
Behind the wheel
I drove a Compact Track Loader (CTL) 333\P at the Coal Valley site which is used for site preparation, land clearing, backfilling and other construction tasks. The model I drove — a.k.a. moved some joysticks around on — was fitted with a laser guidance system that can automatically control the lift and tilt of an attachment to maintain smooth grading performance. Check out my view from the CTL cab!
A look to the past
Of course, John Deere has been creating machines to help farmers till the land for over 150 years. This is a Texas Ranger plow developed in the 1870s for "the black, waxy soil" of Texas and some of states around Mississippi.
Read more about John Deere below
John Deere's CTO: Private 5G architecture will 'stand the test of time'
John Deere's Davenport Works moves to private 5G
Private 5G will be standard operating procedure for John Deere
John Deere taps Starlink to connect autonomous tractors
Read all about John Deere here.