...FDA-approved ventilators...
I guess in this national emergency time, "ventilator" can be loosely called.
It might be consistent with the practice of calling Self Driving Hardware that was introduced in 2016 as "Self Driving" and most people prefer that means drivers don't need to drive at all.
Looking at the picture from NYC Health, these Tesla "ventilators" have not been traditionally classified as "ventilators".
One criterion for "ventilator" is a machine that can breathe for a patient who is unable to take a breath such as one under anesthesia who does not breathe or those who are too weak to breathe on their own.
To do that it delivers breaths through a tube that's inserted down the patient's airway
or a tracheostomy tube that was surgically inserted in front of a patient's neck.
Tesla "ventilators" cannot do that! It can only help those who can still take a breath and it delivers oxygen to a mask that you can see attached to the end of the tubing toward the left:
NYC Health + Hospitals
@NYCHealthSystem
Special thanks to
@tesla for a donation of
40 ventilators to our team at NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst #inQueens. These will be essential in the fight against the #coronavirus.
These machines are usually for sleep apnea patients who can still breathe and can wear a mask but they are not designed for those who can't breathe and have a breathing tube coming out of their airways.
They can be used on the regular hospital floors or at home and they do not require an Intensive / Critical care unit.
They are significantly cheaper (under $1,000) than a traditional ventilator (easily the price of Model 3 at $50,000) that requires an Intensive / Critical care unit.
So, these Tesla machines are very good for non-critical patients at home or on regular floors who do not need an Intensive / Critical care unit.
But when hospitals are asking for "ventilators", they don't mean these Tesla machines, they mean a life support machine that can breathe for a patient even in a coma.
Nevertheless, these are still very valuable machines, but we need to put it into the perspective that just like Tesla "Self Driving", the availability of life support machine ventilators are still not widely seen just yet.