7 ms·

Yes, this is an impressive amount of work done in a few weeks by a small team at Tesla. However, medical devices, especially for life support systems, are not

by pdq 7y ago

Yes, this is an impressive amount of work done in a few weeks by a small team at Tesla. However, medical devices, especially for life support systems, are not a Hackathon project. These devices breathe air into patients lungs. They need to be manufactured in clean room conditions, with medical grade parts, not plumbing parts from a big box store. They must be designed and tested to ISO specifications. If this fails, the patient can die. I can't imagine any hospital or doctor careless enough to connect one of these to a patient, even in this current emergency. The smarter idea is to ramp up existing proven designs, not reinvent the wheel and basically do a publicity stunt about your engineering talent.

rubidium 7y ago
I agree. But one comment worth considering: does it take longer to retool an assembly line to make a new verified part, or to come up with a new design based on existing verified parts? My money is on the former and they'd be better retooling some of the line _if_ there was an off-the-shelf set of designs to work from. That said, there's room for all sorts of approaches. I just don't see this one reasonably panning out or being used.
kiba 7y ago
The whole point of this project is not to use up supplies needed to build ventilator but to compliment the ventilators they are already building by using Tesla parts. This is fundamentally a logistics project. Plus, they have access to Medtronic engineers, and as long as the FDA approve the devices, I have no problem with it.
- Cthulhu_ 7y ago
  But how long will an FDA approval take? Are they likely to take shortcuts because it's an emergency? I mean personally I wouldn't object to them lowering requirements temporarily because we're in a crisis situation, but I hope they won't give permanent approval for all of the hacked ventilators that a lot of companies seem to be producing right now - once the pressure is off, stop using the temporary ones until they've been pulled through the FDA wringer thoroughly.
- baybal2 7y ago
  > This is fundamentally a logistics project. Plus, they have access to Medtronic engineers, and as long as the FDA approve the devices, I have no problem with it. Indeed, they just need to fly the devices, and parts for final assembly from the Medtronic factories in China. In the current situation, it makes zero sense to spin new assembly lines when old ones are situated in the world's biggest manufacturing supercluster, and can be realistically scaled tenfold if they commit to that. What I read going round Chinese BBSes now is that Medtronic's "factory" in Ireland is just doing a screwdriver assembly from Chinese parts, and all that just to do the infamous "Double Irish" manoeuvre
  - Retric 7y ago
    China has banned exports of medical supplies. Edit: Trusting them to supply medical components seems like a huge risk at this point.
    - baybal2 7y ago
      Yes, as of April 1. I wrote about it below.
    - jiangplus 7y ago
      It is not true. China is in post-pandemic time and they even have to sell the over manufactured products to other countries. And many people are shipping and donating masks to their friends oversea. http://weekly.caixin.com/2020-04-04/101538661.html http://weekly.caixin.com/2020-04-04/101538661.html http://international.caixin.com/2020-04-04/101538867.html http://international.caixin.com/2020-04-04/101538867.html
      - baybal2 7y ago
        http://www.mofcom.gov.cn/article/b/c/202003/20200302950371.shtml http://www.mofcom.gov.cn/article/b/c/202003/20200302950371.s...
      - mcguire 7y ago
        Urns in Wuhan Prompt New Questions of Virus’s Toll https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-27/stacks-of-urns-in-wuhan-prompt-new-questions-of-virus-s-toll https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-27/stacks-of...
baybal2 7y ago
> If this fails, the patient can die. In the current situation, I doubt anybody will give any regard to your sentiment. Though, I myself will. > The smarter idea is to ramp up existing proven designs, not reinvent the wheel and basically do a publicity stunt about your engineering talent. This is what China did. Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, and knockoff ventilators began to fly off assembly lines in less than a month. P.S. In other news, A VERY BIG THING that no news seem to be reporting. China has effectively banned nearly every medical export as of April 1 through enforcement of impossible to comply paperwork: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3077953/coronavirus-china-bans-export-test-kits-medical-supplies-firms https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3077953/coro... A man I know, who works at a medical clothing, and bedding factory, says that even such basic things that should not require any certification are now banned for export.
- tazjin 7y ago
  > In the current situation, I doubt anybody will give any regard to your sentiment. Though, I myself will. I think the thought process for a lot of people will go more along the lines of "If you were given the choice of not having a ventilator (because they ran out) and dying, or using an unproven Tesla ventilator and maybe surviving, what would you do?". That's assuming that Tesla (or other companies working on this) actually ends up manufacturing and supplying these things, and this is not just a publicity stunt.
  - mcguire 7y ago
    I'm given to understand that Chinese traditional medicine is effective as well, and with their reported success in controlling the epidemic, we should look into those techniques as well. How much can we count you in for?
- xenonite 7y ago
  I'm not so sure about your conclusion of banning exports. Your link at SCMP says "companies must demonstrate to the Chinese customs agency that their products meet the relevant standards of the countries to which there goods are being exported." Isn't this also a good idea to ensure quality?
tashoecraft 7y ago
How much of all of that clean room conditions is truly necessary? I ask not to be combative or to just support Tesla, but I know the US has a habit of only accepting the absolute best medical equipment, whereas hospitals make do with good but not great equipment and are able to save lives and save money. There is a risk, but there is also the issue of peopling dying because of no ventilator. So what's better? Having no ventilator, or having an one that gets the job done but isn't made with "medical grade" equipment.
- gamblor956 7y ago
  If Tesla were to just build existing ventilator designs, like Medtronic's Open Ventilator, Tesla wouldn't be getting any criticism from anyone. That would be a truly useful thing to do in this situation. For example, nobody is criticizing Tesla's partnership with Medtronic to build the solenoids that are supply-constraining Medtronic's Western production of ventilators. But Tesla wasting time and money on a new ventilator that won't go into production during this crisis is not praise-worthy, especially considering that what they have still needs weeks of work to make it usable in a clinical setting even if they wanted to start production immediately. It's just like the submarine they built for the Thai cave crisis. Lots of overthinking and self-praise going into something that ultimately couldn't be used by the people it was intended for.
dahfizz 7y ago
> The smarter idea is to ramp up existing proven designs, not reinvent the wheel and basically do a publicity stunt about your engineering talent. Those are not mutually exclusive. Yes, it would be great if we could produce more ventilators, but Tesla has no impact on "real" ventilator production either way. This is obviously a PR piece. I see nothing wrong with a company trying to improve their brand's perception by trying to save lives.
djoldman 7y ago
If a doctor believes it is 99% likely that a patient will die without a ventilator and none are available, then why wouldn't they try something like the one from Tesla? A choice between almost certain death and possible life isn't really a choice.
- mcguire 7y ago
  Welcome to Pascal's Wager.
- gamblor956 7y ago
  For starters, if they had to make that choice they'd just use one of the many CPAP or BiPAP machines already available in the hospitals. Even though this would render the machine single-patient only (since they generally can't be sanitized to acceptable levels for re-use without being partially dissembled) we don't have a shortage of those devices.
bArray 7y ago
> If this fails, the patient can die. If these patients receive no help, they die anyway. Given the choice between almost certain death or some experimental piece of hardware - give me the experimental hardware. > I can't imagine any hospital or doctor careless enough to > connect one of these to a patient, even in this current > emergency. I'm sure they will go through accelerated testing. > The smarter idea is to ramp up existing proven designs, > not reinvent the wheel and basically do a publicity stunt > about your engineering talent. Retooling has an enormous cost too (time and money) - yes the design will be proven but you won't nearly have the tools or expertise to implement them. I'm not a Tesla fan-boy by a far shot, but I don't think they deserve this hate for what is clearly a good effort on their behalf.
- steve76 7y ago
  > If these patients receive no help, they die anyway. Given the choice between almost certain death or some experimental piece of hardware - give me the experimental hardware. ??? No big deal if the ventilator: kills more people than the disease. contaminates workers. gives you cancer, HIV, MRSA or paralyzes the lung requiring a transplant. ignites and burns people alive from the inside. makes the disease resistant to disinfectants, so contagious areas have to be closed down for decades. sprays out the disease into the hospital ventilation system. ???
- coredog64 7y ago
  The US already has a model for this though: During WW2, Ford Motor Company didn't stroke Henry Ford's ego by designing and building their own bombers -- they license built B-24s. Yes, retooling costs. But tooling costs as well, and costs more besides. With Elon's PR reach, I would expect that he could get at least one vent manufacturer to license a design to him for a dollar/handshake/whatever.
  - gpm 7y ago
    Elon's companies are also in parallel working with an existing manufacturer (Medtronic) to produce vents of their design (or more specifically to produce a part that is a bottleneck in their production). Putting a small percentage of resources to trying out a second model (this one) is just good risk management. Tooling does not cost when they already have it, that is why they are focusing on ways to repurpose parts they are already producing as parts of the ventilator.
fifteenforty 7y ago
Without these sorts of things, patients are dying. This is not business as usual. We are already using various hacks to overcome the shortages, any improvement is worthwhile in the very short term.
- bfieidhbrjr 7y ago
  Sorry to be the bad new bear, but most people die even with them. Go look at the respirator death rates.
  - fifteenforty 7y ago
    As an anaesthesiologist, I’m fully aware of the published death rates. You will see that they vary from 50 to 95%. The former appears achievable.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jsight 7y ago
At the beginning of this, Musk said that he didn't feel like new companies (including his) could get production going in meaningful quantities by the time that they would be required. I see nothing from Tesla that indicates that has changed, and I think that largely agrees with the point that you are making. Your last point is important, I think. Notably, Tesla & SpaceX have been working with Medtronic to provide solenoids that are apparently a bottleneck in Medtronic's production process. It wouldn't surprise me to hear that others are also working on supplies for existing production lines to help with more rapidly ramping production. I think this is more likely to be useful.
heleninboodler 7y ago
> However, medical devices, especially for life support systems, are not a Hackathon project. This effort they're doing really doesn't seem like they're treating it like a "Hackathon" project. They're putting real engineering resources behind it. Whether or not they can produce something in time is still up in the air, but it seems to me Musk is attacking the problem from several different angles and hoping something works: he's purchased off the shelf BIPAP equipment and donated it (which turns out to not be as useful as hoped), he's got engineers homegrowing what appears to be a legit ventilator that may or may not get to volume production and/or certification in time, and he's helping established ventilator manufacturers with some of their manufacturing bottlenecks. All three of these approaches are unlikely to be fruitful, but at a time when we're desperate and looking for quick innovation, it seems strange to dismiss people with the resources to try.
- rumanator 7y ago
  > This effort they're doing really doesn't seem like they're treating it like a "Hackathon" project. They're putting real engineering resources behind it. Engineers can and do hackathon work, but real engineering work is way more about verification and validation than hacking stuff together. Products need to ensure that they will work reliably within all operational limits. You don't ensure that with an all nighter and a 3D printer. That's one of the main reason why software development is not recognized as an engineering field. Verification and validation are the bread and butter, because if that culture doesn't exist and if these efforts don't happen then people die.
  - heleninboodler 7y ago
    > You don't ensure that with an all nighter and a 3D printer. Does the video linked look like the result of "an all nighter and a 3D printer" to you?
    - viklove 7y ago
      Seeing as the engineers all touched their faces multiple times during the video (fidgeting with their poorly-fitted masks), I think it's safe to assume they know little to nothing about medical care, and this ventilator looks cool but will have no real world usefulness.
api 7y ago
Personally if I were gasping for air I'd take my chances with something built from a garden hose, duct tape, and parts from Home Depot.
throwmamatrain 7y ago
When you have nothing, this is something. Stick to software.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
product50 7y ago
I knew someone at Hacker News will make a comment like this. Hacker News is cynicism at its finest. "I can't imagine any hospital or doctor careless enough to connect one of these to a patient, even in this current emergency." This is utter BS. Imagine that you are in a situation where you are trying to ration lives by selecting who gets access to a ventilator. Won't you not use this device then too? Please, for god's sake, appreciate and be thankful that we have such great companies in US trying to help our people out. For perspective, if you were in a developing country, like India etc., all you have is hope and no company will be stepping up (they just don't have the technical wherewithalls).
- semi-extrinsic 7y ago
  Actually, we had a (world renowned) medical company where I live annouce an emergency ventilator design, complete with functioning prototype. The design was quickly torn apart in public by doctors working on actual Covid-19 patients (the caseload is still manageable here). The device was then shelved. If a well-known medical company can produce something that doctors say is essentially worse than doing nothing, due to the lung physiology of Covid-19 patients, then you betcha Tesla can end up doing the same. Like others have said: start from a design that works, and scale it up. This is not a time for NIH.
  - product50 7y ago
    Yes - of course. Tesla and GM shouldn't even try to help out because obviously they will build the wrong thing. What BS. Take your cynicism elsewhere. You literally are the living embodiment of my point above.
    - semi-extrinsic 7y ago
      No, you misinterpret what I said. They should most definitely help out - by aiding in manufacturing a known working design at bigger scale.
      - product50 7y ago
m463 7y ago
You are basically saying "do no harm" If it becomes a battlefield medicine situation, what should happen? I remember reading that during WW2 when there was no penicillin, nurses would inject milk I believe into patients, hoping it would stimulate an immune response and save the patient. Seems kind of risky, what are the ethics? What should we do if we run out of ventilators?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
ComputerGuru 7y ago
This is overly dismissive and clearly just a “negative for the sake of being negative” comment. I’m not a Tesla fan, but these arguments don’t really hold water and are very insufficient to just dismiss the whole thing out of hand.
natch 7y ago
So discouraging to see such low quality and cynical comments at the top level here. It's been made very clear over the weeks here on HN how Tesla and SpaceX between them, with their overlapping engineering resources (Elon, for example) have deep experience with life support systems, at a level approved by NASA even. To diss their work as a hackathon project is pretty low. It's also been widely discussed that this crisis requires us to try some new things, and think outside of the box. Elon donates massive quantities of masks and various types of the specific breathing devices asked for by medical facilities, and then takes it to the next level, putting his company reputation on the line, and you call it... a publicity stunt. But when Jack Ma donated masks with a lot of fanfare, you said... >Kudos to Jack. ... this shows selfless entrepreneurship. Seems like a bit of a double standard. >The smarter idea is to ramp up existing proven designs, not reinvent the wheel Reinventing the wheel has a long history of success. But that's another story. Closer at hand, they already addressed this in the video, and why they did not take the path you thought would be smarter. Specifically, just to reiterate what was made very clear in the first few seconds of the short video, it would impact supplies needed by existing manufacturers.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- fzeroracer 7y ago
  > various types of the specific breathing devices asked for by medical facilities It's interesting that this is the spin you've decided to put on Elon donating the incorrect type of medical device to hospitals and then attempting to pass those off as ventilators. People have grown cynical because of Elon's own self-serving behavior and twitter publicity stunts evaporating any potential good faith meaning to his actions.
  - natch 7y ago
    They specifically named those devices in their requests to him (C-PAP, BiPAP) so what you describe is not what happened at all.
nabla9 7y ago
This is not work from scratch. Tesla partnered with Medtronic https://www.medtronic.com/us-en/index.html https://www.medtronic.com/us-en/index.html It seems that they also work as parts supplier for Medtronic.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
dmarchand90 7y ago
An important constrain they mention is that they are intentionally avoiding current parts to not block supply chains of existing ventilator builders
gambler 7y ago
Three weeks ago, "hackers" here were posting their ventilator "designs" based on Arduino ducktaped to a CPAP machine and getting hundreds of upvotes. Now Tesla cooperating with actual medical equipment manufacturers is not legit enough?
xkjkls 7y ago
This is an entirely self-serving PR move. Anyone at Tesla knows that getting government approval on any sort of ventilator they construct will require at least 6 months, probably 12, of rigorous testing. This isn't doing anything to truly solve this crisis. Partnering or giving resources to companies that already have approved ventilator designs would by far be more helpful.
emilfihlman 7y ago
>I can't imagine any hospital or doctor careless enough to connect one of these to a patient, even in this current emergency. Well, you can choose death, I'll choose life.

by pdq 7y ago

rubidium 7y ago

I agree. But one comment worth considering: does it take longer to retool an assembly line to make a new verified part, or to come up with a new design based on existing verified parts? My money is on the former and they'd be better retooling some of the line _if_ there was an off-the-shelf set of designs to work from. That said, there's room for all sorts of approaches. I just don't see this one reasonably panning out or being used.

kiba 7y ago

The whole point of this project is not to use up supplies needed to build ventilator but to compliment the ventilators they are already building by using Tesla parts. This is fundamentally a logistics project. Plus, they have access to Medtronic engineers, and as long as the FDA approve the devices, I have no problem with it.

Cthulhu_ 7y ago
But how long will an FDA approval take? Are they likely to take shortcuts because it's an emergency? I mean personally I wouldn't object to them lowering requirements temporarily because we're in a crisis situation, but I hope they won't give permanent approval for all of the hacked ventilators that a lot of companies seem to be producing right now - once the pressure is off, stop using the temporary ones until they've been pulled through the FDA wringer thoroughly.
baybal2 7y ago
> This is fundamentally a logistics project. Plus, they have access to Medtronic engineers, and as long as the FDA approve the devices, I have no problem with it. Indeed, they just need to fly the devices, and parts for final assembly from the Medtronic factories in China. In the current situation, it makes zero sense to spin new assembly lines when old ones are situated in the world's biggest manufacturing supercluster, and can be realistically scaled tenfold if they commit to that. What I read going round Chinese BBSes now is that Medtronic's "factory" in Ireland is just doing a screwdriver assembly from Chinese parts, and all that just to do the infamous "Double Irish" manoeuvre
- Retric 7y ago
  China has banned exports of medical supplies. Edit: Trusting them to supply medical components seems like a huge risk at this point.
  - baybal2 7y ago
    Yes, as of April 1. I wrote about it below.
  - jiangplus 7y ago
    It is not true. China is in post-pandemic time and they even have to sell the over manufactured products to other countries. And many people are shipping and donating masks to their friends oversea. http://weekly.caixin.com/2020-04-04/101538661.html http://weekly.caixin.com/2020-04-04/101538661.html http://international.caixin.com/2020-04-04/101538867.html http://international.caixin.com/2020-04-04/101538867.html
    - baybal2 7y ago
      http://www.mofcom.gov.cn/article/b/c/202003/20200302950371.shtml http://www.mofcom.gov.cn/article/b/c/202003/20200302950371.s...
    - mcguire 7y ago
      Urns in Wuhan Prompt New Questions of Virus’s Toll https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-27/stacks-of-urns-in-wuhan-prompt-new-questions-of-virus-s-toll https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-27/stacks-of...

baybal2 7y ago

> If this fails, the patient can die. In the current situation, I doubt anybody will give any regard to your sentiment. Though, I myself will. > The smarter idea is to ramp up existing proven designs, not reinvent the wheel and basically do a publicity stunt about your engineering talent. This is what China did. Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, and knockoff ventilators began to fly off assembly lines in less than a month. P.S. In other news, A VERY BIG THING that no news seem to be reporting. China has effectively banned nearly every medical export as of April 1 through enforcement of impossible to comply paperwork: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3077953/coronavirus-china-bans-export-test-kits-medical-supplies-firms https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3077953/coro... A man I know, who works at a medical clothing, and bedding factory, says that even such basic things that should not require any certification are now banned for export.

tazjin 7y ago
> In the current situation, I doubt anybody will give any regard to your sentiment. Though, I myself will. I think the thought process for a lot of people will go more along the lines of "If you were given the choice of not having a ventilator (because they ran out) and dying, or using an unproven Tesla ventilator and maybe surviving, what would you do?". That's assuming that Tesla (or other companies working on this) actually ends up manufacturing and supplying these things, and this is not just a publicity stunt.
- mcguire 7y ago
  I'm given to understand that Chinese traditional medicine is effective as well, and with their reported success in controlling the epidemic, we should look into those techniques as well. How much can we count you in for?
xenonite 7y ago
I'm not so sure about your conclusion of banning exports. Your link at SCMP says "companies must demonstrate to the Chinese customs agency that their products meet the relevant standards of the countries to which there goods are being exported." Isn't this also a good idea to ensure quality?

tashoecraft 7y ago

How much of all of that clean room conditions is truly necessary? I ask not to be combative or to just support Tesla, but I know the US has a habit of only accepting the absolute best medical equipment, whereas hospitals make do with good but not great equipment and are able to save lives and save money. There is a risk, but there is also the issue of peopling dying because of no ventilator. So what's better? Having no ventilator, or having an one that gets the job done but isn't made with "medical grade" equipment.

gamblor956 7y ago
If Tesla were to just build existing ventilator designs, like Medtronic's Open Ventilator, Tesla wouldn't be getting any criticism from anyone. That would be a truly useful thing to do in this situation. For example, nobody is criticizing Tesla's partnership with Medtronic to build the solenoids that are supply-constraining Medtronic's Western production of ventilators. But Tesla wasting time and money on a new ventilator that won't go into production during this crisis is not praise-worthy, especially considering that what they have still needs weeks of work to make it usable in a clinical setting even if they wanted to start production immediately. It's just like the submarine they built for the Thai cave crisis. Lots of overthinking and self-praise going into something that ultimately couldn't be used by the people it was intended for.

dahfizz 7y ago

> The smarter idea is to ramp up existing proven designs, not reinvent the wheel and basically do a publicity stunt about your engineering talent. Those are not mutually exclusive. Yes, it would be great if we could produce more ventilators, but Tesla has no impact on "real" ventilator production either way. This is obviously a PR piece. I see nothing wrong with a company trying to improve their brand's perception by trying to save lives.

djoldman 7y ago

If a doctor believes it is 99% likely that a patient will die without a ventilator and none are available, then why wouldn't they try something like the one from Tesla? A choice between almost certain death and possible life isn't really a choice.

mcguire 7y ago
Welcome to Pascal's Wager.
gamblor956 7y ago
For starters, if they had to make that choice they'd just use one of the many CPAP or BiPAP machines already available in the hospitals. Even though this would render the machine single-patient only (since they generally can't be sanitized to acceptable levels for re-use without being partially dissembled) we don't have a shortage of those devices.

bArray 7y ago

> If this fails, the patient can die. If these patients receive no help, they die anyway. Given the choice between almost certain death or some experimental piece of hardware - give me the experimental hardware. > I can't imagine any hospital or doctor careless enough to > connect one of these to a patient, even in this current > emergency. I'm sure they will go through accelerated testing. > The smarter idea is to ramp up existing proven designs, > not reinvent the wheel and basically do a publicity stunt > about your engineering talent. Retooling has an enormous cost too (time and money) - yes the design will be proven but you won't nearly have the tools or expertise to implement them. I'm not a Tesla fan-boy by a far shot, but I don't think they deserve this hate for what is clearly a good effort on their behalf.

steve76 7y ago
> If these patients receive no help, they die anyway. Given the choice between almost certain death or some experimental piece of hardware - give me the experimental hardware. ??? No big deal if the ventilator: kills more people than the disease. contaminates workers. gives you cancer, HIV, MRSA or paralyzes the lung requiring a transplant. ignites and burns people alive from the inside. makes the disease resistant to disinfectants, so contagious areas have to be closed down for decades. sprays out the disease into the hospital ventilation system. ???
coredog64 7y ago
The US already has a model for this though: During WW2, Ford Motor Company didn't stroke Henry Ford's ego by designing and building their own bombers -- they license built B-24s. Yes, retooling costs. But tooling costs as well, and costs more besides. With Elon's PR reach, I would expect that he could get at least one vent manufacturer to license a design to him for a dollar/handshake/whatever.
- gpm 7y ago
  Elon's companies are also in parallel working with an existing manufacturer (Medtronic) to produce vents of their design (or more specifically to produce a part that is a bottleneck in their production). Putting a small percentage of resources to trying out a second model (this one) is just good risk management. Tooling does not cost when they already have it, that is why they are focusing on ways to repurpose parts they are already producing as parts of the ventilator.

fifteenforty 7y ago

Without these sorts of things, patients are dying. This is not business as usual. We are already using various hacks to overcome the shortages, any improvement is worthwhile in the very short term.

bfieidhbrjr 7y ago
Sorry to be the bad new bear, but most people die even with them. Go look at the respirator death rates.
- fifteenforty 7y ago
  As an anaesthesiologist, I’m fully aware of the published death rates. You will see that they vary from 50 to 95%. The former appears achievable.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

jsight 7y ago

At the beginning of this, Musk said that he didn't feel like new companies (including his) could get production going in meaningful quantities by the time that they would be required. I see nothing from Tesla that indicates that has changed, and I think that largely agrees with the point that you are making. Your last point is important, I think. Notably, Tesla & SpaceX have been working with Medtronic to provide solenoids that are apparently a bottleneck in Medtronic's production process. It wouldn't surprise me to hear that others are also working on supplies for existing production lines to help with more rapidly ramping production. I think this is more likely to be useful.

heleninboodler 7y ago

> However, medical devices, especially for life support systems, are not a Hackathon project. This effort they're doing really doesn't seem like they're treating it like a "Hackathon" project. They're putting real engineering resources behind it. Whether or not they can produce something in time is still up in the air, but it seems to me Musk is attacking the problem from several different angles and hoping something works: he's purchased off the shelf BIPAP equipment and donated it (which turns out to not be as useful as hoped), he's got engineers homegrowing what appears to be a legit ventilator that may or may not get to volume production and/or certification in time, and he's helping established ventilator manufacturers with some of their manufacturing bottlenecks. All three of these approaches are unlikely to be fruitful, but at a time when we're desperate and looking for quick innovation, it seems strange to dismiss people with the resources to try.

rumanator 7y ago
> This effort they're doing really doesn't seem like they're treating it like a "Hackathon" project. They're putting real engineering resources behind it. Engineers can and do hackathon work, but real engineering work is way more about verification and validation than hacking stuff together. Products need to ensure that they will work reliably within all operational limits. You don't ensure that with an all nighter and a 3D printer. That's one of the main reason why software development is not recognized as an engineering field. Verification and validation are the bread and butter, because if that culture doesn't exist and if these efforts don't happen then people die.
- heleninboodler 7y ago
  > You don't ensure that with an all nighter and a 3D printer. Does the video linked look like the result of "an all nighter and a 3D printer" to you?
  - viklove 7y ago
    Seeing as the engineers all touched their faces multiple times during the video (fidgeting with their poorly-fitted masks), I think it's safe to assume they know little to nothing about medical care, and this ventilator looks cool but will have no real world usefulness.

api 7y ago

Personally if I were gasping for air I'd take my chances with something built from a garden hose, duct tape, and parts from Home Depot.

throwmamatrain 7y ago

When you have nothing, this is something. Stick to software.

deleted 7y ago

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product50 7y ago

I knew someone at Hacker News will make a comment like this. Hacker News is cynicism at its finest. "I can't imagine any hospital or doctor careless enough to connect one of these to a patient, even in this current emergency." This is utter BS. Imagine that you are in a situation where you are trying to ration lives by selecting who gets access to a ventilator. Won't you not use this device then too? Please, for god's sake, appreciate and be thankful that we have such great companies in US trying to help our people out. For perspective, if you were in a developing country, like India etc., all you have is hope and no company will be stepping up (they just don't have the technical wherewithalls).

semi-extrinsic 7y ago
Actually, we had a (world renowned) medical company where I live annouce an emergency ventilator design, complete with functioning prototype. The design was quickly torn apart in public by doctors working on actual Covid-19 patients (the caseload is still manageable here). The device was then shelved. If a well-known medical company can produce something that doctors say is essentially worse than doing nothing, due to the lung physiology of Covid-19 patients, then you betcha Tesla can end up doing the same. Like others have said: start from a design that works, and scale it up. This is not a time for NIH.
- product50 7y ago
  Yes - of course. Tesla and GM shouldn't even try to help out because obviously they will build the wrong thing. What BS. Take your cynicism elsewhere. You literally are the living embodiment of my point above.
  - semi-extrinsic 7y ago
    No, you misinterpret what I said. They should most definitely help out - by aiding in manufacturing a known working design at bigger scale.
    - product50 7y ago

m463 7y ago

You are basically saying "do no harm" If it becomes a battlefield medicine situation, what should happen? I remember reading that during WW2 when there was no penicillin, nurses would inject milk I believe into patients, hoping it would stimulate an immune response and save the patient. Seems kind of risky, what are the ethics? What should we do if we run out of ventilators?

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ComputerGuru 7y ago

This is overly dismissive and clearly just a “negative for the sake of being negative” comment. I’m not a Tesla fan, but these arguments don’t really hold water and are very insufficient to just dismiss the whole thing out of hand.

natch 7y ago

So discouraging to see such low quality and cynical comments at the top level here. It's been made very clear over the weeks here on HN how Tesla and SpaceX between them, with their overlapping engineering resources (Elon, for example) have deep experience with life support systems, at a level approved by NASA even. To diss their work as a hackathon project is pretty low. It's also been widely discussed that this crisis requires us to try some new things, and think outside of the box. Elon donates massive quantities of masks and various types of the specific breathing devices asked for by medical facilities, and then takes it to the next level, putting his company reputation on the line, and you call it... a publicity stunt. But when Jack Ma donated masks with a lot of fanfare, you said... >Kudos to Jack. ... this shows selfless entrepreneurship. Seems like a bit of a double standard. >The smarter idea is to ramp up existing proven designs, not reinvent the wheel Reinventing the wheel has a long history of success. But that's another story. Closer at hand, they already addressed this in the video, and why they did not take the path you thought would be smarter. Specifically, just to reiterate what was made very clear in the first few seconds of the short video, it would impact supplies needed by existing manufacturers.

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fzeroracer 7y ago
> various types of the specific breathing devices asked for by medical facilities It's interesting that this is the spin you've decided to put on Elon donating the incorrect type of medical device to hospitals and then attempting to pass those off as ventilators. People have grown cynical because of Elon's own self-serving behavior and twitter publicity stunts evaporating any potential good faith meaning to his actions.
- natch 7y ago
  They specifically named those devices in their requests to him (C-PAP, BiPAP) so what you describe is not what happened at all.

nabla9 7y ago

This is not work from scratch. Tesla partnered with Medtronic https://www.medtronic.com/us-en/index.html https://www.medtronic.com/us-en/index.html It seems that they also work as parts supplier for Medtronic.

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dmarchand90 7y ago

An important constrain they mention is that they are intentionally avoiding current parts to not block supply chains of existing ventilator builders

gambler 7y ago

Three weeks ago, "hackers" here were posting their ventilator "designs" based on Arduino ducktaped to a CPAP machine and getting hundreds of upvotes. Now Tesla cooperating with actual medical equipment manufacturers is not legit enough?

xkjkls 7y ago

This is an entirely self-serving PR move. Anyone at Tesla knows that getting government approval on any sort of ventilator they construct will require at least 6 months, probably 12, of rigorous testing. This isn't doing anything to truly solve this crisis. Partnering or giving resources to companies that already have approved ventilator designs would by far be more helpful.

emilfihlman 7y ago

>I can't imagine any hospital or doctor careless enough to connect one of these to a patient, even in this current emergency. Well, you can choose death, I'll choose life.