This startup was supposed to revolutionize California’s wine industry: ‘It completely failed’

Just two years ago, Monarch Tractor was worth half a billion dollars and poised to shake up the wine industry. In April, it closed its headquarters, laid off employees and sold its technology to competitors.

The start-up of the wine country wanted to change the cultivation of grapes and other fruits with $100,000 robots, but the technology did not work well enough. At a time when Waymo’s spectacular success and the advent of AI have renewed interest in all things driverless, Monarch’s failure to disrupt has become another warning about big bets on the latest technology.

The driver-optional, battery-powered tractors — built small enough to fit into narrow lanes between rows of grapes near their headquarters in Livermore — would make it easier and cheaper to manage pests, irrigate and harvest. They had to use cameras and sensors to collect data, learn what works best and then share that learning online with thousands of other high-tech tractors.

With five hopes that could save farmers hundreds of thousands of dollars, the Monarch tractor makes Time magazine’s list of the best inventions of 2023. That same year, Monarch was on Forbes’ list of startups likely to reach a $1-billion valuation. It came within the next year.

“Every farmer around the world is under a lot of pressure because of unemployment,” Chief Executive Officer Praveen Penmetsa told Forbes in 2023, citing hundreds of millions of dollars. “We are the only electric, smart, affordable tractor in the world that farmers can buy today.”

But just as the technology seemed ready to go from the moonshot to the mainstream, customer complaints started pouring in.

Patrick O’Connor, who runs Moonvine Wines, an organic vineyard near the Sierra Foothills wine region, was one of the early adopters and said the tractors often veered off course, veered off course and damaged his vines.

“It’s a complete failure,” O’Connor said in an Instagram video. “Even though I was excited to get rid of diesel, get rid of my solar panels and embrace new technology, it didn’t happen. It was actually too dangerous.”

A technology that could change the world did not work as designed. Meanwhile, Monarch hit a wall when its manufacturer – the same company that makes most iPhones – had to stop making tractors.

“Building and growing a new agricultural tractor platform has come with some unexpected challenges,” the company said in a statement in April.

Ngonyama and its founders did not respond to requests for comment.

The company launched in 2018 with a promising pedigree.

Its founding team included Tesla veteran Mark Schwager and Napa Valley winemaker Carlo Mondavi, grandson of Napa legend Robert Mondavi.

Penmetsa, the CEO, has worked for years in the automotive and EV industry, mainly in and around Los Angeles.

The company set out to bring battery power, data collection and driverless technology to tractors. If it can pull it off, it could change farming around the world.

California’s wine industry has been struggling with increased competition and declining demand, which may have influenced many growers to try to save money by using Monarch technology. It may also make farmers more wary of using unproven and expensive new technologies.

Monarch may have been aiming too high, industry insiders say.

While Monarch tried to solve two problems at once — making its tractor electric and autonomous — it didn’t spend enough time thinking about the needs of farmers, said Walter Duflock, vice president of innovation for the Western Growers Assn. Duflock is the owner of San Bernardo Rancho, a fifth-generation family farm in southern Monterey County.

“The electric tractor has struggled to find a use case on the farm,” Duflock said in an interview. “They never got to the point where their electric car solves a big problem.”

At Duflock Farm and many other farms in California, there is no charging infrastructure, he said. Even if the infrastructure is improved, the time it takes to charge an electric tractor is too long for many farmers who cannot spare time during busy seasons.

“The idea of ​​sitting there waiting for a charging tractor to finish charging doesn’t make sense,” Duflock said.

Duflock felt the Monarch tractor “is going to hit things, it’s not going to stop quickly,” he said. “It didn’t work.”

The fall of the Monarch is gradual. In July 2024, the company laid off 15% of its workforce, followed by another round of layoffs in November of that year that affected approximately 35 workers, or 10% of its workforce. A year later, the company warned employees that it could lay off 100 employees or “shut down” a company-wide memo obtained by TechCrunch.

In November 2025, Monarch Tractor was sued by an Idaho-based trucking company, Burks Tractor, which accused Monarch of misrepresenting its proprietary technology.

Burks Tractor paid Monarch more than $770,000 for 10 tractors.

“Upon acquiring the tractors, Burks Tractor discovered that the tractors were not performing as they were represented to be and were unable to operate independently,” the complaint states.

A Burks Tractor manager declined to comment because of the ongoing litigation.

Monarch cars were supposed to be made at a facility in Ohio owned by Foxconn, a Taiwanese company known for assembling iPhones. Foxconn sold the factory in August 2025, shutting down Monarch’s plans there.

In April, Monarch sold technology it had spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing to Caterpillar, for an undisclosed amount.

“It means that technology will continue to move forward,” one company, Monarch said in a LinkedIn post at the time. “Thank you to our employees, investors and customers for being part of this journey.”

Caterpillar did not respond to requests for comment.

Other companies are plowing ahead where Monarch has failed.

For example, the farm equipment company John Deere has had more success marketing and selling independent farm equipment. It has taken a different approach, gradually incorporating autonomous technology into its existing products. The company’s 8R tractor can operate autonomously while being controlled by a smartphone and is deployed on large farms that grow corn, soybeans and wheat.

Organic vineyard owner O’Connor still uses his Monarch tractor, but only as a battery and to cut wood with the attachment he added.