Here in the U.S., farmers frequently lived not more than 3 miles from some town, which is a distance than can be covered by horse and buggy in about an hour.  You still see a town, or the remnants of a town, every 6 miles.  That is truly the case in the area where I grew up.  In less populated areas, you would often find some sort of small general store, the 1900s equivalent of a convenience store, on a rural crossroads.  These stores also doubled as post offices.  In addition, many farm families did not go to town during the week, but only made the big trip on Saturdays or to sell livestock or crops.

Formerly, many towns in the Midwest, East and South were on or no more than 20 miles from a railroad, which made delivery of goods much less energy intensive.  If we here could rebuild some of these low-use or spurs even for light use, we would be in much better shape.  That would be hard to do, though, on a sixth to a third the amount of liquid transportation fuel.

The extra weight of batteries and low-end torque of electric motors are great features for a tractor. Electric motors don't waste any energy when you aren't moving and the torque is greatest when you first start moving, right when you need it the most.

And although 'timeliness' is a factor, tractor use is intermittant with the tractor frequently found sitting in the shed for long periods of time...

Future developments of Gantry Systems my also help ameliorate other problems - depending on the situation.

Whatever the case, the present range of Very Large
Tractors may not have much of a future...

Other thoughts/comments?