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Medicine United States

Elon Musk Says Tesla's New York Factory Will Make Ventilators 'As Soon As Humanly Possible' (cnet.com) 118

Posted by BeauHD from the supply-and-demand dept.
140Mandak262Jamuna writes: Elon Musk announced that the Gigafactory in Buffalo, New York, making solar roof tiles and battery packs for home energy storage is switching to making ventilators in collaboration with Medtronic. "Days after offering 1,255 free ventilators to help deal with the coronavirus outbreak, Tesla boss Elon Musk said the company's New York factory will restart to make more," reports CNET.

"Giga New York will reopen for ventilator production as soon as humanly possible. We will do anything in our power to help the citizens of New York," he tweeted on Wednesday. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the state needs 30,000 ventilators at the peak and they have 400 at hand.
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Elon Musk Says Tesla's New York Factory Will Make Ventilators 'As Soon As Humanly Possible' More

Elon Musk Says Tesla's New York Factory Will Make Ventilators 'As Soon As Humanly Possible'

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  • He'd be better off finishing the flux capacitor for the Cybertruck.

  • Elon Musk Says Tesla's New York Factory Will Make Ventilators 'As Soon As Humanly Possible'

    Musk has finally learned that he sucks at giving a delivery date for things he promised, so now he just gives vague, unverifiable delivery dates. The guy's a GENIUS!

  • Making a ventilator isn't a simple "have 3D printer and arduino coding skills, will travel" exercise. It takes oxygen-level sensors and sophisticated control software, not to mention skilled medical technicians that have taken appropriate training courses in using the device.

    Tesla's gigafactory can probably make the plastic parts and do final assembly, but you can be sure that they outsource the PC boards and components, fans, valve seals, and even the technical writing and document printing to other com

    • One question I'm curious about: how much simpler can a ventilator be given that it only needs to treat one condition, and indeed only the most common patient types and presentations of that condition. It also only has to reliably work better than no ventilator to be of some value. I imagine hospital ventilators are complex so that they can be adapted to produce absolutely optimal results even for patients with strange combinations of conditions.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Cobbling something together to pump O2 into a person is easy.

        But, a ventilator should know at a minimum blood oxygen level, respiration pattern, and it needs to be able to display this data. Beyond that, I am sure there are failure statuses that should be reported, potentially mixing of O2 and N2 or filtered ambient air.

        The “bonus” points for regulatory compliance would be things like logging and diagnostics to show that the unit is properly maintained and was not the cause of someone dying...

        I

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Whibla ( 210729 )

          I am idly curious though if a modified CPAP could be enough.

          It would appear so [www.partyof.wales], yes.

          Not as 'good' as a ventilator, but it's hoped that early use of respirators, especially those that reduce viral load, will negate the need for patients to reach the stage of needing a ventilator.

    • I'm no doctor but I think you are very wrong.

      the tech is farking simple.

      the CONTROL OF it (human operator) is the truck.

      its just simple mechanics. and yes, people really can turn around circuits and boards in days or less. not hard and with motivation (we have it!) its not impossible at all.

      silicon valley maker shops (dammit, techshop is gone and even ts2.0 is gone, shit!) could pull this off in weeks. not kidding. of course, no certification but when people are DYING, cert is a luxury you cannot block

    • Re:it's more difficult than you think (Score:4, Insightful)

      by CanadianMacFan ( 1900244 ) on Thursday March 26, 2020 @07:21PM (#59875768)

      They're working with Medtronic, a company that makes ventilators. So Tesla is probably just doing the final assembly. Probably some of the fabrication of plastic and/or metal parts could be done there too. I'm guessing that any circuit boards or other electronics would be made at some other factory and shipped to Tesla.

      Hopefully Tesla is just going to be building one or more of Medtronic's designs and it's not going to be a case of Musk "improving" things.

    • Wrong. There are effective modern ventilators with no electronics at all, just having valves that work from gas pressure. There are effective modern ventilators without moving parts even, look it up (they use liquids and a gas supply).

      Not everything has to have a big pretty touch screen and embedded processor m'boy. Of course, an electric ventilator can have analog electronics or relays too, if you insist on the kind that plug into the mains.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rerogo ( 1839428 )

        I am interested in the no-moving parts ventilators but can't find a reference. I found, among other things, a taxonomy of ventilators on PubMed[1 [nih.gov]] but everything it describes seems to have moving parts, and I can't figure out a way to do any of this without at least the moving parts in a pressure regulator. (And that's just for CPAP, BiPAP is harder.) Do you have a source?

    • Making a ventilator isn't a simple "have 3D printer and arduino coding skills, will travel" exercise. It takes oxygen-level sensors and sophisticated control software, not to mention skilled medical technicians that have taken appropriate training courses in using the device.

      Perhaps Elon should go talk to the guy who runs SpaceX. After all SpaceX creates a complete life support system for 7 people for their Dragon spacecraft. I bet that has those oxygen sensors and sophisticated control software.

    • Tesla is highly vertically integrated, so on that end -
      PC boards and components - Telsa can make these. They're doing their own silicon, after all.
      Valve seals - shouldn't be anything they can't fabricate, cars have lots of seals.
      Fans - probably order these, but probably use components already found within their cars, so within the supply chain.
      Training? These are emergency ventilators. KISS probably reigns.
      Repair? Again, emergency ventilators. It breaks, you grab another one.

    • Well, making ventilators isn't rocket science.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fred911 ( 83970 )

      "Musk is familiar with "production hell", he's going after the same punishment again."

      Only for those that aren't capable of vision. It's a worthy challenge, one significantly more simple that others he's been fully successful (and profitable) in completing. Besides, you have to figure it makes his life more enjoyable while contributing to the rest of us without similar tallent.

  • I've heard when things get especially bad, perhaps from secondary infection, no amount of ventilation can help. Your lungs are swimming in fluid and you need to be put on an ECMO. I;m certain theres even less of those than ventilators.

  • Lots of nerds here hating on the man who has good intentions.
    • His arrogance which often leads to false promises is the entire problem. But it looks like that is what it takes to build a company these days.

    • Lots of nerds here hating on the man who has good intentions.

      It's not the nerds who are doing the hating.

  • People can handle them only when sedated and they have to weaned off of them for weeks, sometimes months.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Guspaz ( 556486 )

      And that makes them useless how, exactly? Even with the weaning, they're still saving the lives of roughly half the people whose case of covid-19 progresses to the point of requiring ventilation.

    • People can handle them only when sedated and they have to weaned off of them for weeks, sometimes months.

      Agree on the first part, disagree on the second. Source: talking quite a lot about these things with an anesthesiologist who works with ventilators and sedation daily.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pz ( 113803 )

        I have what I suppose you would call second-hand experience with ventilators, both as a practitioner using them, and observing as a family member of a patient who was treated two weeks ago. (I've placed breathing tubes and monitored ventilation, but haven't had it done to me, so, strictly speaking, second-hand experience.)

        You only need to be weaned off a ventilator if you've been on it for a very, very long time. Usually, the body starts to breathe on its own when it's strong or awake enough, and you get

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      I went through this with my daughter just a few months ago. She had to be intubated, and after seven days we gave the go ahead for a tracheostomy; she also got a tube directly into her stomach for feeding. She was nine weeks on the ventilator, four of them weaning, and weaning was only so short because she was young. After she needed rehab to relearn how to speak audibly and to swallow safely.

      It really sucks, but it beats dying.

      Now most people won't need that level of care; they'll be able to get by with

  • Buzzfeed screwed the pooch, got the quote from Cuomo wrong:

    New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the state needs 30,000 ventilators at the peak and they have 400 at hand.

    The state had some number of ventilators before this week, and the federal govt sent him another 4,000 this week.

    That Cuomo wants 30K ventilators when the federal stockpile is about 20K points out his unreasonable selfishness - NY State isn't entitled to every available ventilator in the country AND THEN SOME because he has a model that says do...

    • 1) NY is one of the most populated states
      2) NYC's high density makes it one of the 1st and highest demand areas
      3) Ventilators are reusable. When done, the next hot spot gets them.
      4) NY pays more in taxes than most other states and again has more people so they should get more than other states.
      5) NY is like 12% or something of the whole US economy; only CA is higher. By Trump's values they should be 2nd most important.
      6) The Fed gov is supposed to have been doing it's job for 3 months instead of total inco

      • 1,4, and 5 are all pretty much the same reason. Which is pretty arbitrary, just how state lines are drawn. If you were dividing things up nowadays, you wouldn't include upstate and NYC in the same state. But certainly having 5% of the US population wouldn't entitle you to more than 100% of the ventilator stockpile.

        The 400 number was based on allocating the stockpile in proportion to population.

        • It was off the top of my head; however, pretty much isn't exactly the same is it?

          NEED is how you allocate limited resources not solely population; dense places are getting hit faster. Like I wrote, ventilators are REUSABLE and can be reallocated. Furthermore, countries with idle ventilators could be sharing them... but not with the USA (because we'd either reject the offer or we'd not give them back in a reasonable time.)

          If you want to be fair, you'd put every "virus hoax" person going around like an idiot

          • TBH, there' not much evidence if given to NY, they would be given back to be re-allocated in time. Most states are a week or two behind NYC (dumb, naive extrapolation), and NYC doesn't need that many ventilators yet. And, frankly, the fact that NYC is suffering first shouldn't fuck over all the other states that are on the same track a week or two behind.

            There's not much evidence that need (+/- 1.5 weeks) isn't directly correlated with population.

            • Problem is we lack accurate data due to pathetic levels of testing. You can't allocate and plan as well without data. NYC is already running on hacks to get 4 people on 1 machine.

      • Cuomo has to ask because he failed to act. Cuomo's plan was to just triage and let some die.

        " op-ed that appeared in The Post Friday by former Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey, who said that in 2015, Cuomo and other state officials learned that in a potential pandemic, New York would need 18,000 ventilators but only had 2,000 on hand.

        Then-state health commissioner Howard Zucker assembled a task force for rationing the ventilators they already had that recommended that the state not purchase the 16,000 ventila
      • And on Feb 13 as the pandemic warning signs are getting worse Cuomo is promoting the Lunar New Year parade in NYC. Apparently his concern for ventilators and pandemic preparedness are an extremely recent conversion.

        Note that two weeks earlier Trump was announcing quarantines and major travel restrictions.

    • Keep in mind that his projections basically state that anything less than 30k ventilators means additional people dying. Yes, he might not be entitled to the full US stockpile, but Tesla, Ford, GM, and more have all committed to building more of them, and all ventilator manufacturers are working overtime.

      Everybody requests their projected need, and we can get a count for what we need to emergency build.

    • Cuomo also said that NY should be the recipient of the lion's share of the 2T stimulus package because it has the most cases.

  • If the city cannot be lockdowned. New cases of COVID will appear fast. Either there is a shortage of ventilators
    or shortage of medical staffs to use the ventilators.

    In other parts of the world, lockdown is about the only solution.
    But if the govt cannot control the people's feet. At least the govt should control their hands.

    This virus is transmitted by contact. The patients cough virus to their hands and then offset printing the virus
    to every surface they touch. So if someone comes along to touch the doo

    • This is the absolute smartest thing I've read since the beginning of the outbreak.

    • I would like to suggest ordering people to wear a glove that could sanitize. Such as putting on a nitrile glove and then a thin cotton glove on top of the nitrile. The cotton glove is then sprayed with sanitizing solution. [...] And when the sanitizing solution dries up, the color of the glove changes.

      Wouldn't body heat transmitted through both sets of gloves cause the sanitizing solution to evaporate within a minute or so? Or am I missing something?

  • Giga New York will reopen for ventilator production as soon as humanly possible.

    I'm somewhat disappointed. I would have expected him to go for inhumanly, or better, superhumanly. But at this point, he pulls the humanly card. Sad!

    On second thought, at least he doesn't pull an AI card. That would have been tragic...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hawk ( 1151 )

      The actual quote was censored: he said that it would open with "ludicrous speed" . . . :)

      hawk

  • This is all great, as long as Musk can deliver within 2 weeks or so .. a tall order to retool a factory.

    Much beyond that and they'll be of little help. The surge in patients will be over in NYC. Other areas of the country could use them.

    • I agree that manufacturing the ventilators sooner rather than later would be great. However, although the need for lots of ventilators will start within the next few weeks, I don't think the need for them will subside for many months, possibly a year or more.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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