Tesla Ventilator

[Xambler]

Interesting design...wasn’t clear if the have access to enough non Tesla parts though.

 

[gaswalla]

cool video.. thanks for sharing.
Folks are soon going to realize that ventilators are actually fairly simple and have not had much fundamental innovation over the years (think:cars). When this is all done, the old-school ventilator companies are going to have a tough time keeping up with the new designs and approaches to ventilation (Dyson and Tesla would be cool to see)

 

[Mrcarcrazy]

+1. Thanks for sharing that’s pretty impressive.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

cool video.. thanks for sharing.
Folks are soon going to realize that ventilators are actually fairly simple and have not had much fundamental innovation over the years (think:cars). When this is all done, the old-school ventilator companies are going to have a tough time keeping up with the new designs and approaches to ventilation (Dyson and Tesla would be cool to see)

The mechanics of the ventilator haven't changed much, but the control software has rapidly evolved. Simple, naive ventilation methods like constant-volume are incredibly bad for the patient and will often do more harm than good if the patient has to be on the ventilator for more than a day or two. Sophisticated control of pressure and synchronization with the patient's own attempts to breathe make a night-and-day difference of how much the ventilator can help the patient get stronger, not weaker.

Building a simple constant-volume ventilator is not hard, but those kinds of ventilators won't help that much. This ventilator that Tesla is building is in line with the modern sophisticated ventilators from Medtronic and Philips, and has a real chance of making a huge difference. Major hurdles at this point are 1) Rigorous QA/QC of the control software such that it produces ventilation therapy that is exactly in-line with requirements -- you cannot afford any bugs here. 2) How to mass produce -- need a production line, supply chain, and logistics just as much as you need design and software. 3) Trial and FDA approval (although I would imagine that in the current emergency, FDA approval might be provisionally given even if all trial requirements haven't been met). 4) Training of physicians, although if software is properly designed to emulate typical ventilators from other companies, necessary training might be minimized or largely eliminated.

I'd love to see this work and make a difference, it's just going to be a question of how fast Tesla can start shipping production-ready machines. Lots of work still to do.

 

[KenC]

Making it out of car parts will make it huge! I mean the billion breath ventilator is cool, but simplicity and small size should be the goal, no?

 

[SomeJoe7777]

Making it out of car parts will make it huge! I mean the billion breath ventilator is cool, but simplicity and small size should be the goal, no?

If you had a couple years to design it and were looking to make it a profitable product, sure. But since we need them right now, we need as little new engineering and manufacturing as possible. Minimum time to market, maximum life-saving potential. Using as many existing parts as possible is the way to go for that goal.

 

[KenC]

If you had a couple years to design it and were looking to make it a profitable product, sure. But since we need them right now, we need as little new engineering and manufacturing as possible. Minimum time to market, maximum life-saving potential. Using as many existing parts as possible is the way to go for that goal.

Sure, every design choice is a tradeoff, but we've already had reports of Dyson designing a ventilator over a weekend, and MIT students designing one that could be made out of parts from Lowes for $100. So, design time shouldn't be an issue, and neither is profit. When I mentioned "simplicity", it's implicit that the device have as few parts, new or old, as possible. Giant ventilators make them harder to ship quickly, and harder to implement in crowded spaces. Ideally, you'd want something that could hang onto the siderail of the bed, as opposed to something that is so large it needs to be wheeled around separately.

 

[Runt8]

Sure, every design choice is a tradeoff, but we've already had reports of Dyson designing a ventilator over a weekend, and MIT students designing one that could be made out of parts from Lowes for $100. So, design time shouldn't be an issue, and neither is profit. When I mentioned "simplicity", it's implicit that the device have as few parts, new or old, as possible. Giant ventilators make them harder to ship quickly, and harder to implement in crowded spaces. Ideally, you'd want something that could hang onto the siderail of the bed, as opposed to something that is so large it needs to be wheeled around separately.

Seems like the biggest deal is having the parts at all, regardless of if they're new or old. Making them out of car parts when the factory that assembles the car is shutdown makes a lot of sense to me - I'm sure that Tesla has a bunch of Model 3 screens and computers stockpiled.

When lives are on the line, we can't let ideal be the enemy of good.

 

[Xambler]

Interesting follow up video by an RN...more detail on ventilators and nice views on the Tesla progress.

 

[kwest2]

I hope the panel gaps aren't too wide. Might not work very well.

 

[neurocutie]

Much as I appreciate the effort, to me I see something that is way too complicated and therefore also expensive. Certainly not going to help 3rd world countries. I think the MIT and Stanford groups are on the right track. It needs to cost << $10,000 (actual price on market), which means less than $3000 in parts. I think $1000 (or less) is the right target for cost to manufacture.

As far as COVID, 1) ventilators are needed NOW, not 6mos from now. 2) the stats are that if you are a COVID patient and get put on a ventilator, you have a worse than 50% chance of surviving -- some estimates as poor as 30%. So the ventilators are just prolonging the inevitable by a few days for most. While trying to save every patient is worthwhile, it begs the question of whether the ventilators are really helping all that much. It was my understanding that COVID ends up destroy lung tissue and with the inflammation, you basically end up drowning. Pushing air or even oxygen into non-existent necrotic functioning lung tissue isn't going to help as much as most people think.

Ventilators are overused for Covid-19 patients, doctors say - STAT
Doctors rethinking coronavirus: Are we using ventilators the wrong way?