It's not for you, grandad

Electric and hydrogen machines, remotely controlled and autonomous machines, and in-cab driver aids. Not for you? They were never meant to be!

I had an epiphany this past week.  I felt the veil lifted from my eyes and saw the planets align.   I had been wrong all along.

The site of my awakening was the Bobcat factory and equipment demonstration area in Dobris in the Czech Republic where I was taking part in the company’s series of Demo Days.

Even though Bobcat is among the pioneers in the electrification of construction equipment, most of the machines on display still rely upon diesel (at least for now).   Even though Bobcat was among the first to foresee a future in which machines might be operated remotely or autonomously, all the equipment on display featured a cab and a seat to support the ample posterior of each and every operator.   And even though there was plenty of impressive technology on display, the future still felt distant, remote and just beyond my grasp.

My son Fred – who runs our Diggers and Dozers channel – was with me.   He has been shadowing me for the best part of eight years now.   He takes better photos and shoots better video than me, partly because he studied both and partly because he has grown up doing so.   But in all our travels together, there was one area where I had him beat.   Despite the fact that I am the single worst machine operator on the entire planet, I was still better than my son, because he has NEVER operated a machine.   He has sat in a few that were static and he has filmed hundreds in action.   But he has never experienced the vibration of the levers in his hands, smelt the diesel fumes in his nostrils or experienced the roar of the engine from within a cab.

But at the Bobcat facility, he was handed a Bobcat MaxControl that has been developed in conjunction with gaming giant Razer (Fred was already impressed because he uses Razer headphones while editing videos).   And then he drove a Bobcat skid steer loader.   A real one; not a simulator.   There was no formal training, no explanation of functions.   He just took the control and the skid steer was fully at his command.   Having made the machine dance and whirl, he handed the MaxControl to me.   Suddenly, those smooth movements became jerky; every action required thought and intense concentration while it had been entirely natural and intuitive to my son.

And that was when it hit me.   Like many of my peers within the industry, I have pondered the true viability of electric and hydrogen fuelled machines.   I have questioned the seemingly endless quest to equip machines with more and more tech.   And I have lamented the very notion of machines without the sound, smell and feel of a traditional diesel.

Such things are not for me or for the likes of me.   And that is precisely the point.   They were never meant to be.

There will come a time – and that time is coming fast – when equipment operators will not bemoan the lack of noise, smell and vibration because those were never part of the industry they will inherit.

So I can sit here and raise a greying eyebrow at Harry Styles’ fashion choices, wince at what constitutes music these days, and shake my head in disbelief in whatever the Hell Sam Smith is this week.   But I can do so safe in the knowledge that whether the operator is inside or outside the machine or if they are operating using traditional levers of a hand-held device about the size of a smartphone, the skill remains.

The only downside, for me at least, is that I must now accept that my son is officially better than me at everything.