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Not sure what to think of this. Any people working with real medical ventilators care to comment on this?

heurifk 7y ago
Not a doctor, but I did a crash course in ventilators recently and it has the main features - inspiration/expiration pressure, volume, rate, oxygen %. UK gov also put out a document with the MVP for a ventilator, and the Tesla one looks like it will cover most of the therapeutic features. The one thing I would worry about is software bugs in such a rushed project.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Tesla (and SpaceX) has experience with life critical code (running vehicle powertrains independent of the rest of the vehicle subsystems; please save Autopilot critiques for another thread). A fully validated ventilator is ideal, but if your other option is death, a ventilator that is "less than fully validated" might be preferable. EDIT: You're right to acknowledge there might be bugs, it's important to quantify risk. You decision based on the risk(s) raised.
op03 7y ago
Free PR nothing else (and nothing wrong with that). Those engineers didn't call up the marketing/pr dept and ask for a professional video crew to show up - "cause we just want to share an update with the world".
- Robotbeat 7y ago
  It’s more than that. Tesla engineers themselves probably are itching to help. Check out GE’s workers getting mad that the company wasn’t helping to make ventilators. People join companies like Tesla and SpaceX because they want to be challenged, have a bias for action (of course, everything still needs to be qualified), and make the world a better place. In a global pandemic that can be helped by addressing a shortage of manufactured stuff, engineers aren’t going to want to just sit on their hands if there’s a chance their efforts could be helpful. It’s not just corporate PR. It’s not just Elon Musk. It’s also these workers wanting to help the world.
  - op03 7y ago
    That's pretty much what Trump and his team say too. It's all PR to me, until they are standing next to their product, in use, saving lives.
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    - xiphias2 7y ago
      That would be an unwise decision. Doctors can be replaced with other doctors, but if an engineer working on the ventilator gets sick, and possibly infects the whole team, they are hard to replace, as other engineers don't have the experience and expertise that they got in the last couple of weeks (and maybe years).

Not a doctor, but I did a crash course in ventilators recently and it has the main features - inspiration/expiration pressure, volume, rate, oxygen %. UK gov also put out a document with the MVP for a ventilator, and the Tesla one looks like it will cover most of the therapeutic features. The one thing I would worry about is software bugs in such a rushed project.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
Tesla (and SpaceX) has experience with life critical code (running vehicle powertrains independent of the rest of the vehicle subsystems; please save Autopilot critiques for another thread). A fully validated ventilator is ideal, but if your other option is death, a ventilator that is "less than fully validated" might be preferable. EDIT: You're right to acknowledge there might be bugs, it's important to quantify risk. You decision based on the risk(s) raised.

op03 7y ago

Free PR nothing else (and nothing wrong with that). Those engineers didn't call up the marketing/pr dept and ask for a professional video crew to show up - "cause we just want to share an update with the world".

Robotbeat 7y ago
It’s more than that. Tesla engineers themselves probably are itching to help. Check out GE’s workers getting mad that the company wasn’t helping to make ventilators. People join companies like Tesla and SpaceX because they want to be challenged, have a bias for action (of course, everything still needs to be qualified), and make the world a better place. In a global pandemic that can be helped by addressing a shortage of manufactured stuff, engineers aren’t going to want to just sit on their hands if there’s a chance their efforts could be helpful. It’s not just corporate PR. It’s not just Elon Musk. It’s also these workers wanting to help the world.
- op03 7y ago
  That's pretty much what Trump and his team say too. It's all PR to me, until they are standing next to their product, in use, saving lives.
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  - xiphias2 7y ago
    That would be an unwise decision. Doctors can be replaced with other doctors, but if an engineer working on the ventilator gets sick, and possibly infects the whole team, they are hard to replace, as other engineers don't have the experience and expertise that they got in the last couple of weeks (and maybe years).