A Bay Area startup that set out to revolutionize global farming appears to have collapsed, burning through hundreds of millions of dollars, laying off nearly all of its employees and leaving disappointed farmers across the country.
Monarch Tractor raised over $240 million for its self-driving, electric tractors guided by artificial intelligence that debuted in 2023. That year, Time called the vehicle one of the year’s greatest inventions, and Forbes predicted that the company would become the world’s next billion-dollar startup. The company was later valued at $518 million. Now, the company has abandoned its Livermore headquarters after laying off its entire staff last year and warning it may “shut down.”
California winemaker Patrick O’Connor gave the technology a blunt review in an Instagram video posted this week: “It totally failed.” In the video, he said he’s been testing the tractor for three years on his steeply sloped vineyard and that $200 million in investor and government money had been “wasted” on the “failed autonomous AI robot tractor.” The video went viral, with nearly 550,000 views and just over 24,000 likes as of Wednesday.
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O’Connor told SFGATE that, in his three years with the machine, he couldn’t find any serious uses for it. He also said it was dangerous when in self-driving mode.
“I wouldn’t let anyone else around it,” O’Connor said.
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Monarch Tractor’s founders include Mark Schwager, a former Tesla manager, and Carlo Mondavi from the legendary Napa Valley wine family. The company did not return SFGATE’s request for comment. However, Mondavi commented on O’Connor’s Instagram video this week, saying that he had high hopes for the product but left the company a year earlier over disagreements with its CEO. He said the tractor “had real first-gen challenges, and farmers shouldn’t be the ones carrying that burden.”
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“I’m genuinely sorry the tractor didn’t live up to what it should have. You and the Monarch family deserved better,” Mondavi said.
Patrick O’Connor’s electric Monarch Tractor is shown at his vineyard in El Dorado County, Calif.
Courtesy of Patrick O’Connor
O’Connor told SFGATE that he was initially excited to use Monarch’s electric tractor. Organic farms like his often involve much more labor-intensive work to control weeds and pests than conventional farms that use pesticides, and the idea of off-loading that work to a self-driving tractor seemed like a dream. He said the machine was also built to specifically work in the narrow confines of vineyards. But it never worked well.
“It was theoretically promising advancement in mechanical weed control over chemical weed control,” O’Connor said. “But the hydraulics were finicky, the automated row follow didn’t pan out. It was hitting my vines. And it was never to a point where you could be driverless.”
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O’Connor, who declined to say how much he paid for the tractor, said he did end up finding some uses for it. He said the storage container is good for moving tools and that the all-electric vehicle’s battery can supply power to other tools, essentially working as a generator on wheels. He also uses the tractor to split wood — a use he showed off in his viral Instagram post.
Praveen Penmetsa, the CEO and co-founder of Monarch Tractor, speaks onstage during Vox Media’s Code Conference at the Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel in Dana Point, Calif., on Sept. 27, 2023.
Jerod Harris/Getty Images
Aside from O’Connor’s usability complaints, multiple tractor dealerships have sued Monarch for allegedly selling defective tractors, TechCrunch reported last November. The company denied the claims in court, but Monarch’s attorneys in at least one of the cases have stopped representing the company out of concern that it won’t be able to pay its legal fees, according to Pleasanton Weekly.
Monarch’s three tractor models cost as much as $100,000, although various government grant programs appear to have dramatically reduced their price. Monarch’s website lists state and federal subsidies that can reduce a tractor’s cost by as much as 85%.
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O’Connor said he’s still optimistic that AI and electric vehicles can make it easier to farm without toxic chemicals, although he also fears companies could use the machines to make it easier to spray more dangerous pesticides, under the argument that there’s no humans doing it.
“I support the purpose of trying to advance technology in agriculture, and I’m not trying to shut that down or be victimized,” O’Connor said. “This is my experience, and I hope for better in the future.”