South Korea’s Kioti had some news to reveal last month about its North American limited lineup of loaders and tractors.
Kioti, a brand of Daedong Corp., currently offers a skid steer (the SL750) and compact track loader (the TL750) through its dealers here. Both are 74-horsepower models, placing them at the higher end of the size range for those machines.
Along with that larger size comes a demand from buyers for improved hydraulic capacity. To meet that demand, Kioti has introduced the Flow+ high-flow option.
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“Right now we’re sitting in the 74-horsepower size class, which is the biggest for both the skid steers and track loaders,” says Justin Moe, product manager for Kioti’s construction division. “Within that, you see a pretty high take rate for high-flow units. It’s become more and more prevalent over the years.
“These machines have really turned into tool carriers, not just pick-and-place or digging machines. You see the prevalence of snow blowers, sweeper brooms, rotary cutters, especially in agricultural applications.
“We knew we had to come out with high flow. So Flow+ is kind of our first stage into that.”
The Flow+ option pushes the flow rate up from the standard 21.9 g.p.m., to 34 g.p.m. That gives these machines one of the highest flow rates in the industry segment.
The brand says that allows the 750s to more easily handle hydraulically driven attachments. Along with that, Kioti has also lowered the effective system pressure, from 3,335 p.s.i. to 2,900.
“What makes it a little bit different is we have the pressure threshold set to 2,900 p.s.i., which is geared to lighter-duty attachments like snowblowers, rather than a disc muncher or rotary forestry head,” Moe says.
“The lower pressure also means the system has a little more protection. Very high pressure is hard on the hydraulic components. Bringing the pressure down a little bit makes it a little easier on those components.”
Kioti expects that change will extend the life of machines compared to those with very high pressure systems, which should reduce wear and tear and reduce total cost of ownership over the machine’s lifetime.
The higher flow rate with the Flow+ option comes from an added gear pump. Two pumps split hydraulic functions. Although general cycle time for things like lifting the loader arms won’t change with the addition of Flow+, using powered attachments won’t have as much effect on reducing the response rate of those other systems when operated at the same time.
“Where you’ll notice a difference is in multi-functioning,” Moe says. “You’ll see improved multi-functioning, but there is still some flow-sharing between the lift and auxiliaries.”
The brand expects to add a third hydraulic system option for even greater flow rates in the near future, which will be useful for higher-demand attachments, such as those used in forestry operations. No official release date has been announced for that feature yet.
“We’re not stopping with Flow+,” says Moe. “We are working on a finalized high-flow solution. We are going to have our standard flow solution, Flow+ and eventually something with very high hydraulic pressure to suit very high-intensity applications that are a smaller portion of the market.”
Connectivity
To keep up with the growing demand for telematics systems, Kitoi is also jumping into that technology for its line of utility tractors. Its offering is called the Kioti Connect App.
It offers the typical range of telematics information along with AI-powered predictive analytics, allowing it to provide information regarding anticipated failures.
“We started rolling it out this year,” chief product technology officer Youngjin Son says. “It will provide location and running time. We can have other sensors depending on the machine.
“We can provide the information ahead of time so that a customer can prevent the expected failure. Before something happens, they can fix it. That’s the main goal.”
Right now Kioti Connect is available on the 66- to 73-hp RX tractor line, as well as the larger HX Series and compact construction machines. The service will come with a free use period on each new machine, but owners can opt to subscribe and continue it.
Kioti Connect will also be expanded later this year, making it available on the brand’s smaller compact utility tractor lines.
“We will expand (it) with all tractors by the end of this year, even small sub-compacts, our lower-cost tractors,” Son adds.”We will absorb those costs within Kioti to provide value to our customers.”
Kioti is also planning to expand the kinds of information the app will provide, and it’s looking into making it a retrofittable feature for some existing models, but there is no definite timeline on that becoming available.
“We have a strong vision,” he adds. “Now we are just starting, but we will provide additional information to our customers through the app. So the app can be equipped with Chat GPT or Google-based AI. That’s our vision for the future.”
Finally, Kioti plans on growing the top end of its tractor line, with the introduction of a 140-hp model later this year.
