Elon Musk's Ventilator Has Parts From Tesla Electric Cars, Ready To Save COVID-19 Lives

COVID-19 pandemic has put immense strain on the medical supplies across the world. Hospitals are running out of ventilators to treat patients with acute cases of COVID-19.

Reuters

Various companies have chimed in to create ventilators to help the patients breathe, and one of those companies was Tesla.

They¡¯ve been working on their own version of the ventilator for a while now, and now they have finally revealed what the final device would actually look like.

People have been criticising Tesla from reinventing the wheel instead of adopting existing designs. However, an engineer in the video answers this concern stating, ¡°We wanna use parts that we know really well, we know the reliability of, and they¡¯re available in volume.¡±

Tesla

The video reveals how its ventilators share several components from its Tesla cars, including lithium-ion batteries from its cars as well as Model 3¡¯s infotainment system to display the condition of the patient, among several other components.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been surrounded by multiple controversies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, he called the coronavirus panic ¡®dumb¡¯. He has even gone ahead and told his employees that they had a higher chance of dying in a car crash than dying from COVID-19, in an internal memo.

He had even kept its manufacturing facilities open, even after authorities asked for them to be shut down.

Reuters

Even though the prototype seems promising, it is still in its early stages and not quite ready to save lives yet, since it will have to undergo a strict series of tests lined up by the FDA to get finally approved for use.

Tesla, however, isn¡¯t the only car company to make ventilators to fight shortage amidst COVID-19, Ford and GM motors are working on it too, however, they haven¡¯t really displayed any prototype yet.