In light of the rapid spread of the new coronavirus pneumonia epidemic around the world, a number of multinational car companies have switched to the production of medical devices such as respirators and masks in response to the government's call.
April 8, under the Defense Production Act announced by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (hereinafter referred to as HHS), the federal government will pay GM $489.4 million (about 3.45 billion yuan) to manufacture ventilators for treating patients with neocoronavirus pneumonia.
GM has now partnered with Washington-based ventilator company Ventec?Life?Systems to make the ventilators at one of GM's parts plants in Indiana, with production set to begin next week. Under the contract, GM is required to deliver 6,132 ventilators to the NSPS by June 1, for a total of 30,000 units by the end of August.
Both GM and Ventec have said they will produce at cost with no profit. Typically, the ventilators are contracted to sell for $18,000, compared with $16,300 now.
GM spokesman Jim? Jim?Cain said the contract covers the cost of the ventilators, materials, engineering and tooling, and other ancillary supplies needed to fund GM's efforts to get the production line ready to build the parts.
GM said in a statement, "GM and Ventec are working quickly and urgently to equip front-line medical professionals with critical care ventilators to meet their needs in treating seriously ill patients."
In addition to the ventilators, last week GM began trial production of Level?1 masks at its previously shuttered Detroit plant. on April 6, about 24 paid volunteer employees of the American Automobile Workers Union came to the mask production line for production. GM previously expected to produce 20,000 masks by April 8, and when production line capacity peaks, the masks will reach 50,000 per day and 1.5 million per month.
In fact, not only GM, Ford, BMW, FCA, Tesla and other European and American carmakers have also announced that they will urgently switch to the production of medical equipment during the epidemic.
On March 25, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) announced that it would begin production of masks at a joint-venture plant in China and provide free masks to U.S., Canadian, and Mexican police officers, EMTs, firefighters, and staff at hospitals and medical clinics at a capacity of 1 million masks per month.
On March 30, Ford said it would produce 50,000 protective masks at its plants in Brazil and Argentina and work with the medical sector to produce 50,000 respirators over the next 100 days.
On April 6, Tesla CEO Elon? Musk announced that a respirator had been built from Model?3 parts.
On April 8, BMW CEO Oliver?Zipse said the company would begin producing respirators, soon to reach 100,000 per day. And the company has already delivered 100,000 masks to the government from its existing stockpile and delivered another 50,000 masks and 1 million medical gloves on Wednesday, with another 1 million masks to be delivered in the next two weeks.
This article comes from the authors of the Motor Home Carrier and does not represent the views of Motor Home's position.