Electric automaker Tesla has posted a video on its YouTube channel, showing its engineers are working on making ventilators from Tesla Model 3 parts.
In the video, Tesla’s engineers reveals two versions of the ventilator, a prototype model with its components laid out throughout a desk, as well as a packaged model that indicates how it might look when used by a hospital.
“We want to use parts that we know really well, we know the reliability of and they’re available in volume,” one of Tesla’s engineers describes.
The ventilator uses multiple components from its vehicles, including the Model 3’s infotainment screen, computer, along with a part used in the Model S’s suspension system.
Apart from Tesla, Ford is collaborating with GE to expand ventilator production while also utilizing its own resources to build vents, respirators and face shields. GM aims to construct ventilators at an Indiana-based car factory.
Together with developing its own ventilator design, Musk is also buying FDA-approved “ventilators” and shipping them to hospitals that require them.
New York City Hospitals has also shared an image on Twitter thanking Musk and Tesla for providing 40 ventilators to Elmhurst Hospital in Queens.
According to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, the ventilators that Musk promised to make won’t be ready in time for the coronavirus outbreak.
About 469,121 people in the US have been confirmed as being infected with the coronavirus. The virus has killed 23,649 people in the country.
