Tesla shows ventilator prototype made from car components | Hacker News Reader

Tesla shows ventilator prototype made from car components

bloomberg.com

6 pointshhs6 comments

Can’t you just take the blueprint of an existing ventilator, and begin mass production on it? No need to reinvent the science and engineering of it.

And since Trump enabled the emergency order, then I’m sure he can also waive the Intellectual Property violations as well for this.

Something like this, while novel, looks like a lost cause. Normally, this machine would probably take months or years to certify for its safety, and I’m sure it would need to be certified by the FDA for live human usage.

What if there’s a defect, and the machine fails at a critical moment, and kills the patient? Then, who’s fault or liability is that? Tesla? The hospital? The doctor? The FDA? Or does it all get brushed under the rug, and the patient is declared dead because of the virus, and not because of some defect in the machine.

For a price comparison, I saw that the ventilators that China had shipped to the world, had a listed price of $2,732. I’m not sure what the final MSRP markup is.

But at that price, it seems that ventilators are not really that expensive.

As they touch on at the beginning of the video, their goal appears to be to develop a ventilator design that can be built with a completely different supply chain than preexisting designs. That way, they aren't putting further stress on the supply chains of conventional manufacturers. They can work with components and tooling that they already fully understand. And they aren't wasting precious resources during R&D that a more conventional manufacturer can use immediately.

Sure, it's a PR exercise borne out of a twitter spat. But if they ultimately aren't successful (most likely outcome imo), they haven't wasted any resources except car parts. And if they are successful, then they've increased total production potential by diversifying the supply chain, which would be a very good outcome. I say, let 'em tinker.

NIH is a huge issue at Tesla.

Tesla was supposed to be using Medtronic designs but it seems they've already given up on that idea.

Unfortunately, it does no good to reach mass production 18 months late.

If we are to avoid falling back into our dangerous old ways of not having enough spare capacity then we need to have more diversity and competition in supply, production, and marketing of medical equipment so that health authorities can more easily afford to have excess capacity during the good times in preparation for the bad. Of course sooner would be better but later is not necessarily futile.

And most likely Tesla will probably drop the project entirely as soon as the fuss dies down but that doesn't mean that someone else working on an unconventional approach should necessarily give up just because they won't be in time for this crisis, there will be more crises later.

I agree. My issue is with Tesla demand uncritical adulation for a PR project that is being designed without any input from actual users (like the cave submarine that was completely unusable for its stated purpose) on a timeframe that basically ignores the ongoing crisis.

We have sufficient manufacturers of ventilators to build up spare capacity after the crisis is over. It is not praise worthy for Tesla to build a luxury ventilator that won't be ready until months or years after this crisis is over (assuming they actually take it to production).

An exercise in false hope, futility, ostensible charity, and virtue-signaling. Ventilator manufacturers have solved numerous issues including reliability, durability, noise levels and loop hygiene (as well as possible). Automotive engineers don't know what they're doing compared to ventilator engineers. Maybe they should stay in their lane rather than squander attention, time and money on something that is inherently dangerous to public health.

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