John Deere introduces next gen autonomous tractors and mowers at CES 2025

At the CES 2025, the world’s leading tech and consumer electronics show held in Las Vegas, John Deere has showcased its latest iteration of autonomous machines, offering visitors a sneak peek into the future of agriculture where it is anticipated driverless machines will have a prominent presence.

The showcase in 2025 builds on Deere’s autonomous technology first revealed at CES 2022, presenting the company’s second-generation autonomy kit that combines advanced computer vision, AI and cameras to help the machines navigate their environments.

However, it wasn’t just agriculture that John Deere set its sights on, as the brand aims to also offer autonomous solutions in the construction and landscaping sectors.

According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, labour is a massive problem across the ag, construction and landscaping industries.

In ag, roughly 2.4 million farm jobs need to be filled annually while in construction, 88 per cent of contractors struggle to find skilled labor.

Meanwhile, 86 per cent of landscaping business owners can’t find labour to fill open positions.

“Our agriculture, construction, and commercial landscaping customers all have work that must get done at certain times of the day and year, yet there is not enough available and skilled labor to do the work,” said Jahmy Hindman, Chief Technology Officer at John Deere.

“Autonomy can help address this challenge. That’s why we’re extending our technology stack to enable more machines to operate safely and autonomously in unique and complex environments.

"This will not only benefit our customers, but all of us who rely on them to provide the food, fuel, fiber, infrastructure, and landscaping care that we depend on every day.”

Autonomous 9RX Tractor

John Deere’s flagship 9RX, also currently the world’s most powerful commercial tractor, has received Deere’s second gen autonomy kit for increased accuracy and productivity.

The kit features 16 individual cameras arranged in pods to enable a 360-degree view of the field, giving farmers peace of mind to step away from the machine and focus their time on other important jobs.

The autonomy kit also calculates depth more accurately at larger distances compared to the kit first introduced in 2022, allowing the tractor to pull more equipment and drive faster.

Autonomous 5ML Orchard Tractor

Protecting crops through air blast spraying is a challenging and repetitive job, hence why John Deere thinks it is a no brainer to automate the task.

The autonomous 5ML orchard tractor features the latest autonomy kit with added Lidar sensors to address dense canopies found in orchards and will initially be offered with a diesel engine.

John Deere confirms a battery electric tractor of comparable size and capacity to existing diesel 5M/ML models on the market today will follow.

Autonomous Battery Electric Mower

One of the newest additions to John Deere’s stable of autonomous machines is a battery electric mower for commercial landscaping purposes.

The autonomous mower leverages the same camera technology as other Deere autonomous machines, but on a reduced scale since the machine has a smaller footprint.

With two cameras on the front, left, right, and rear, 360-degree coverage is achieved, leaving staff to focus on other aspects of the job.

In addition, John Deere also unveiled an autonomous articulated dump truck for quarry mining use.

The machines are managed via John Deere Operations Center Mobile, the company’s cloud-based platform. By swiping left to right to start, the machine can be started once placed in the appropriate spot.

Through the app, users also have access to live video, images, data and metrics, and the ability to adjust various factors like speed. In the event of any job quality anomalies or machine health issues, users will be notified remotely so they can make the necessary adjustments.

Select machines will be autonomy ready from the factory, with the second-generation autonomy kits available for retrofitting on to certain existing machines.