Ford plans to make as many as 50,000 simple
ventilators for coronavirus patients within 100 days and plans to continue
producing 30,000 per month after that.
The automaker will make the ventilators at its
Rawsonville Components Plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Ford will pay 500 United Auto Workers-represented volunteers to work on the project.
The Airon Model A-E ventilator that Ford will produce
operates on air pressure alone and requires no electricity. Airon currently
makes three of the ventilators per day at its factory in Melbourne, Florida.
Ford's plant will produce the ventilators around the clock with three
shifts of workers and it will make 7,200
of the devices per week.
Ford is also working with GE Healthcare to increase GE's own production of its more
advanced ventilators. It's also working on designing a simplified GE Healthcare
ventilator device that Ford could also produce.
Other automakers will also manufacture ventilators on a large scale. General
Motors is
partnering with another ventilator maker, Ventec Life Systems, to help increase
Ventec's production. CEO Elon Musk said Tesla will manufacture ventilators at a
Tesla plant in Buffalo, though the company has not shared details about that
effort.
Virgin Orbit will also produce ventilators, making it
one of the first aerospace companies to get involved. The California-based
rocket startup is working with a California research hospital and the
University of Texas at Austin to create a prototype for a so-called
"bridge" ventilator — a simple device that the company says can be
quickly manufactured on a large scale.
Bridge ventilators could be used to treat some of the
less critically ill Covid-19 patients in order to free up more sophisticated
ventilators for those in dire need, Virgin Orbit said.
You can also watch the video by clicking on the Play Button
Article from CNN (edited)
