Your Next Ventilator Just May Be A Ferrari

The makers of high-end supercars would appear to be unlikely candidates to build ventilators. However, if you were to look at what these manufacturers do, produce highly complex, well-crafted machines, you’d agree that they are quite well suited to churn out the highly intricate, lifesaving medical devices that are in short supply. Carmakers play a crucial and powerful role in the global supply chain, where they oversee vast networks of companies, procuring a wide variety of arts that range from plastic to metal to electronics.

This is not novel, in the early days of World War II, President Roosevelt summoned manufacturers to the White House and asked how to multiply the country’s capacity to produce and distribute steel, fuel, rubber, bombers, and tanks. President Roosevelt established a War Production Board to oversee the temporary repurposing of factories and the establishment of new distribution channels.

Fast-forwarding to today, Ford and GM, with their broad supply chains and access to skilled engineers, are stepping up to fill the shortage and deliver ventilators. Italian carmakers Ferrari and Fiat partnered with some of the biggest ventilator manufacturers to help boost production of the lifesaving machines and delivery electronic and pneumatic components.

While most car manufacturers chose to either produce ventilator parts in their facilities or help ventilator manufacturers to increase production, Tesla CEO Elon Musk purchased 1,255 ventilators from China is donating them hospitals in the U.S.

Hypercar manufacturer Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus has offered its currently empty 40,000 SF factory in Danbury, Connecticut as extra hospital space to alleviate the pressure on Danbury Hospital’s COVID-19 overloading situation. The company was originally slated to begin production of the SCG 004 road car, at the factory. The company is exploring options to use 3D printing and injection molding to mass produce pressurized masks from modified snorkels, to protect first responders and medical staff.

All around the world, it is refreshing to see both corporations and individuals answering the call for help from the medical industry. Of course, there is a benefit to them, from a boost to their public image, to income from the government, but they and we are most interested in the final result, an end to this pandemic and the restoration of a normal life.