Electric vehicles are on display at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada this year, but it's not just about cars and trucks that we see on major roadways. The farming equipment industry is moving into the space.

John Deere is revealing multiple major pieces of farm equipment that will be powered by electricity, and the company's CEO says even though farmers make up a small percentage of the total population, advances in agriculture are essential to food production for everyone.

John May, the CEO of John Deere said to a crowd at CES 2023, “Why should you care about farmers when they represent less than 2% of the U.S. population?”

“You will not find two industries that have a larger impact on our world, and all of us, than agriculture, and construction,” May said.

As TechCrunch reported, John Deere's ExactShot sensor and robotics-based fertilizer application system would help increase the speed of repetitive tasks making the process more efficient, according to the company.

And the idea is also to have less waste while farming, leading to a more sustainable agriculture industry.

John Deere also presented a new excavator that is powered by a Kreisel battery and would reduce emissions and noise while farming.

May said at a keynote address, “You might want to think of them as robots that precisely execute jobs.”

“They’re real and are being used on farms today. If this sounds like a lot of technology, it is," he said.

A Tesla Model S "spontaneously caught fire" on a California highway.

According to the Sacramento Fire Department, the Tesla Model S was engulfed in flames when crews arrived at the scene on Highway 50 on Saturday.

The fire department said battery cells continued to combust as they attempted to put the fire out.

It was eventually extinguished after crews used about 6,000 gallons of water, officials said.

Tesla warns about the dangers of a burning battery, saying it releases toxic vapors.

However, no injuries were reported.

The federal government has looked into concerns about Tesla batteries catching fire. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration declined to investigate Tesla battery fires in 2019.

"The available data indicate that noncrash battery fires in Tesla vehicles are rare events," the agency noted.

DETROIT —

All of Ford Motor Co.'s current and future electric vehicles will have access to about 12,000 Tesla Supercharger stations in the U.S. and Canada starting next spring.

Video above: In February, the Biden-Harris Administration announced thousands of Tesla's charging stations would eventually open to other vehicles

Ford CEO Jim Farley and Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced the agreement Thursday during a "Twitter Spaces" audio chat.

"We think this is a huge move for our industry and for all electric customers," Farley said.

Musk said he didn't want Tesla's network to be a "walled garden" and that he wants to use it to support sustainable transportation.

"It is our intent to do everything possible to support Ford and have Ford be on an equal footing at Tesla Superchargers," Musk said.

Farley said there will be a cost to Ford owners, perhaps a monthly subscription, but he didn't give specifics. Details of any financial arrangement between Ford and Tesla were not announced.

At first, Ford's current electric vehicles will need an adapter to hook into the Tesla stations, which have their own connector. But Ford will switch to Tesla's North American Charging Standard connector with its second-generation EVs starting in 2025, Farley said.

Ford said Tesla's connector is smaller and lighter than those in use by other automakers.

Farley said Tesla's Superchargers have great locations.

"We love the locations. We love the reliability," he said. They will join Ford's own Blue Oval charging network which has about 10,000 fast-charging stations, he said.

Ford EV owners will be able to access the Tesla chargers seamlessly with Ford's app, Musk said.

Tesla has about 17,000 Supercharger stations in the U.S. There are about 54,000 public charging stations in the U.S., according to the Department of Energy, but many charge much more slowly than the Tesla stations.

The Ford-Tesla deal is separate from a plan to open part of Tesla's charging network to all EVs.

The White House announced in February that at least 7,500 chargers from Tesla's Supercharger and Destination Charger network would be available to non-Tesla electric vehicles by the end of 2024.

Video below: Tesla charging ports will soon be usable by other electric vehicles

The chat between Musk, who last fall bought Twitter for $44 billion, and Farley came off without the embarrassing technical glitches that plagued Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' announcement Wednesday that he was running for president.

With Musk, DeSantis released the news that he would seek the Republican nomination, but the chat was delayed by glitches for nearly a half hour. Musk blamed it on straining of servers because so many were trying to listen in.

The Farley-Musk chat had a much smaller audience, than DeSantis, about 18,000 listeners at the start.

The number on the DeSantis chat topped out at 420,000, far from the millions who have watched televised presidential announcements. After the problems were fixed, the audience remained under 500,000.

Harley-Davidson's electric motorcycle brand, LiveWire, will be spun off as a separate publicly-traded company next year.

LiveWire will still be 74% owned by Harley-Davidson and its financial results will be reported along with Harley's, but it will have its own stock trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "LVW." The new company will go public in the first half of 2022 through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, according to Harley-Davidson. Taiwanese motorcycle company Kymco is also investing in the new company and will own a 17.3% share.

Video above: Harley-Davidson struggles to rev-up sales with its electric motorcycle

The spinoff gives LiveWire an enterprise valuation of nearly $1.8 billion. Harley-Davidson's overall current market capitalization is about $5.8 billion.

LiveWire currently offers just one model, the $22,000 LiveWire One. The 100-horsepower bike has a range of 146 miles in low-speed urban riding and 70 miles in higher-speed highway riding. Harley's LiveWire electric motorcycle was first shown as a concept bike in 2014. It went on sale as a production model in 2019 but was frequently criticized for its high price at the time of about $30,000.

Harley-Davidson plans for LiveWire to release three more electric motorcyle models, but the company did not provide a timeline for when. It expects to sell around 190,000 electric motorcycles globally in 2030. In 2021, Harley-Davidson sold fewer than 400 LiveWire motorcycles. The brand will also sell small electric bicycles for children.

LiveWire competes against startup electric motorcycle makers like Zero and Lightning, both based in the United States, and Italy's Energica. Electric motorcycles currently make up just 1% of motorcycle sales in the U.S., according to Harley-Davidson, but the company expects them to make up 10% by 2026. By that time, they are expected to make up 13% of sales in Europe and 45% in China, according to a Harley-Davidson investor presentation.

Harley-Davidson announced its own five-year strategy earlier this year which involved focusing on the brand's core market segments of large touring and cruiser bikes.