Update:
Giga New York will reopen for ventilator production as soon as humanly possible. We will do anything in our power to help the citizens of New York.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 25, 2020
Medtronic CEO Omar Ishrak announced on CNBC today that his company has already started working with Tesla on getting ventilator production at Tesla’s Fremont factory up and running.
Medtronic CEO Omar Ishrak announced on CNBC this morning that they’ve already started working with @Tesla — and they’re fast on track to start production of ventilators at Fremont!
— Viv 🐉 (@flcnhvy) March 25, 2020
Tesla 👏 team 👏 gets 👏 it 👏 done 👏 @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/AwMH2QkI59
On March 19 – just five days ago – Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that both Tesla and SpaceX, of which Musk is also CEO, would start working on ventilators.
“Just had a long engineering discussion with Medtronic about state-of-the-art ventilators”, he tweeted on Saturday, and highlighted Medtronic’s very impressive team.
Just had a long engineering discussion with Medtronic about state-of-the-art ventilators. Very impressive team!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 21, 2020
Hospitals all over the world, but particularly in the US, face a massive shortage of ventilators to treat COVID-19 patients after cases started spiking globally earlier this month.
The coronavirus pandemic, and the resulting shelter-in-place order that California governor Gavin Newsom issued on March 20, has forced Tesla to temporarily halt production at its Fremont plant in California. However, the car maker is able to utilize its existing equipment to produce the much-needed ventilators in the meantime.
Ishrak explained that Medtronic is currently making different types of ventilators – the base model, which will be needed in high quantities, and the more advanced models, which are needed to treat severe and critical cases. Since special equipment is necessary for manufacturing the more advanced models, Tesla will produce Medtronic’s base model.
This isn’t the first time the electric carmaker has stepped up to help in situations like this one – for example, Tesla has been working on rebuilding Puerto Rico’s power grid infrastructure in 2017, after it was destroyed by Hurricane Maria in the same year.
Last week, the company also distributed 250,000 N95 masks and other critical PPE (personal protective equipment) to hospitals in the US to help combat the shortage of medical supplies due to coronavirus.
“For some items we have less than a week’s supply, and we expect a surge of patients to start coming. This donation from Tesla is incredible”, James May, systems operation manager for UW Medicine, told the Seattle Times.
Tesla CEO confirmed on Twitter today that he and the Tesla team “will do whatever is needed to help in these difficult times.”
Making good progress. We will do whatever is needed to help in these difficult times.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 25, 2020
