As the Coronavrus continues to spread around the world, inundating medical facilities and the professionals who manage them, the need for innovative solutions in finding a cure, developing a vaccine, preventing the spread, and sustaining patients has increased. Ventilators, for example, are essential medical equipment needed in the fight against COVID-19. And private organizations such as car- and rocket-manufacter Tesla has responded to the call.
One major concern is that these ventilators are not designed for continuous use. Different companies and manufacturers are now developing ways and are designing their own modified ventilators to address this issue. Tesla, the company known for producing electronic and battery-powered vehicles, will soon unveil its own coronavirus ventilator prototype.
Tesla will be unveiling its new ventilator to fight the Coronavirus
According to a report by CNET, the New York gigafactory of Tesla will help produce ventilators that can last longer compared to normal units currently used in many hospitals around the world. Last Sunday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that the company will be manufacturing certain parts of the medical device -- not the whole machine.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, clarified in one of his posts on his official twitter account that they will be working on the full machine -- although he thinks that these machines probably won't be needed.
On April 5, the engineering director of Tesla, Joseph Mardall, said that these modified ventilators will be heavily based on Tesla car parts. This was explained in a four-minute video posted on YouTube.
The new Coronavirus ventilator prototype wil have Tesla's Model 3 parts
It was announced that the ventilator will consist of parts from Tesla's Model 3 car. This model was released in 2018, which was further improved upon and was released again. The original ventilator components graded by hospitals will be modified along with Tesla's vehicle parts which will work in sync to push the mixture of air and oxygen through the device.
The ventilator prototype of Tesla will be driven by the Model 3 infotainment system. The center display touchscreen is used as the interface to monitor the vehicle's infotainment motherboard. Used in Tesla ventilator prototypes, it will be the main computing system to drive the valves and control the flow of air and oxygen into the ventilators.
There are also other manufacturers and companies that are working together to solve the medical ventilator supply issue. Companies such as General Motors, MIT, Dyson, and a British manufacturer led by Airbus have announced that they will be starting projects that aim to solve the this problem. However, their new system will still have to undergo and pass medical regulations and tests before they are cleared to be used by hospitals.
As of the moment, there are still no updates as to when Tesla will begin manufacturing the ventilator prototypes. "There's still a lot of work to do but we're giving it our best effort to make sure we can help some people out there," said the Vice President of Tesla, Lars Moravy.
