Bobcat rolled a loader onto the CES stage that cannot decide what it is. Cab or no cab. Wheels or tracks. Swappable lift arms. Fully electric, and able to run itself. It is called the RogueX3, it is not for sale, and it is the clearest look yet at where the compact loader is heading.
What Bobcat put on the RogueX3
This is the third turn of the RogueX concept, and the modularity is the whole idea: one machine, set up to suit the job, with the cab treated as an option rather than a fixture. Bobcat showed it working on its own or by remote through its MaxControl system, and floated future power across electric, diesel, hybrid and hydrogen. Beside it sat the Bobcat Jobsite Companion, a voice assistant that takes more than fifty machine commands by speech.
Why a maker builds a concept loader at all
A concept like this is how a maker points at a direction without putting a date on it. And Bobcat sells more compact loaders than almost anyone, so its idea of a concept carries weight. The direction it is pointing: the compact machine becomes a platform you configure, and the person running it moves from operator toward supervisor.
What MaxControl means for an owner today
Both seats read it differently. For the owner, the interesting part is not the driverless dream, it is MaxControl and the voice assistant, both within reach now and both aimed at real problems, the task too dangerous to put a person on and the operator you cannot hire. For the operator, the missing cab is the worry, but running a machine from a distance, or with help, lands years ahead of running none at all. The job changes long before it disappears.
So take the RogueX3 for what it is. The shape that cannot decide what it is makes a good talking point, and it is a long way off. The parts that are real, and close, are the two with names on them: a loader you can run from across the site, and one you can talk to. They are the ones to think about now.
Source: Doosan Bobcat. Image: Bobcat.
We track the Australian used and new equipment market and publish what we find, in plain language, for the people actually buying and selling machines.