PTx Trimble's OutRun is the first commercially available autonomous retrofit grain cart. It is a kit that bolts onto a tractor you already own and lets it shuttle grain with nobody in the seat. You keep the tractor, you lose the second driver.
The harvest job OutRun is built to remove
The job it solves is the one every harvest crew knows. You need a person on the combine and a person on the cart, and at the busiest hours you cannot find the second person. With OutRun, the combine operator stages the cart or calls it for on-the-go unloading, then sends it back to a preset truck zone. One person now runs both. It is available on John Deere 8R and 8000R tractors from 2014 with IVT transmission, and Fendt 900-series compatibility arrives in 2026, with kits expected late in the year. That makes AGCO the first to sell a buyable autonomous grain cart across mixed fleets, which is most real farms.
What the OutRun autonomous grain cart kit actually does
The spec reads like working equipment, not a prototype. It runs up to 15 mph, handles inclines to about 15 degrees, and stays synced with the harvester over Starlink plus radio links across roughly a mile. The safety stack watches for objects and slows then stops if one does not clear, with configurable virtual boundaries and no-go zones. Dealer install is about a day and a half for two people. Pricing is a one-time hardware buy plus an annual service fee, no per-acre or per-hour charge, and it supports corn, soybeans, wheat and most small grains today.
The judges noticed. OutRun took the 2025 Davidson Prize from ASABE and AEM at Commodity Classic, a Fast Company World Changing Ideas award, and an OutRun Tillage version pulled a further 2026 Davidson Prize. PTx VP Andrew Sunderman says it was built as a cost-effective way to help farmers through the labour crunch during critical harvest times.
Why OutRun fits broadacre farming
The fit for our farms is unusually clean. Broadacre operations are large, the harvest-labour shortage is real, and adding autonomy to existing iron suits a cost-conscious mixed fleet far better than buying a dedicated robot. Both Deere and Fendt run strong dealer networks here. Given how many Fendt tractors already sit in our grain country, the 900-series compatibility is the line on this announcement worth circling for next season.
Source: PTx Trimble (AGCO). Image: PTx Trimble (AGCO).
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