COVID-19: The Automotive Industry Reacts

We’re in the midst of a pandemic. You literally cannot live through a day, or perhaps even an hour, without a new and devastating development from some part of the world. Even within our borders, the situation seemingly isn’t totally under control, with huge local surges in recent days. This epidemic strikes fear and panic to most, to varying degrees admittedly, and has devastated healthcare systems, with governments reacting by enforcing strict lockdown measures (circuit breaker for us Singaporeans), which in turn has led to a significant disruption in the global supply chain.

Automakers have not been spared. With parts shortages, and social distancing regulations, most have been unable to restart their factories after an earlier shutdown. However, there is a glimmer of hope in all the gloom and doom - sure, the car makers may not be able to manufacture, or race, their cars, but they have turned their resource and technology-rich teams into front-line fighters, directly equipping their respective countries with vital medical supplies that are in high demand globally at the moment. Here are 5 automotive groups contributing to that medical supply chain!

Photo: BMW

BMW’s contribution to the fight against COVID-19 is on two fronts. Firstly, the German automaker, both in its native Germany and in key markets, are providing vehicles for use by social and healthcare facilities, ensuring medical professionals have access to reliable, rapid transport whenever needed.

Secondly, they’re utilising their vast global supplier network chain, to track down and procure medical equipment at a relatively short notice, then donating said items, again in Germany and in key markets. The items can range from breathing masks to disinfectants, and BMW themselves have not ruled out potentially developing their own medical masks later down the road.

Photo: Groupe PSA

France, faced with the compelling need for more respirators, has asked a group of French industrial companies, led by Air Liquide, to rapidly increase the production of respirators. Their target is to provide 10,000 respirators in 50 days, starting from April, and ending around mid-May. Air Liquide, Groupe PSA, Schneider Electric and Valeo, have responded by setting up a Task Force flanked with 30 purchasing and industrialisation experts, and have come up with a plan to speed up production of Air Liquide’s Medical Systems respirators.

Groupe PSA is directly contributing to increasing production potential, with the creation of a specific workshop in its Poissy factory. With its more than fifty volunteer employees, this team will then be able to start producing the central block of the system, which will then be delivered to Air Liquide for final assembly and checks. They’ve also offered manpower to join the Air Liquide, for both R&D and manufacturing should the latter ever need it.

Photo: Tesla

Tesla has sourced and purchased 1,255 FDA-approved ResMed, Philips, and Medtronic ventilators from China after discovering an over-supply from one of their contractors. These ventilators have then been shipped to US soil, and distributed across medical facilities that desperately need them.

However, the EV firm doesn’t want to stop there. They want to add to the global pool of ventilators, and not just take away and redirect some of the medical industry’s supply. Their engineers have been working on repurposing components from the Tesla Model 3, including the car’s infotainment system, ECU, electronics and parts from the ventilation system, which are then mated to medical-grade components via a custom frame. Their ventilators can monitor and log a patient’s recovery progress, and comes with a number of fail-safes to make sure it keeps working should there be a failure in the main system.

Photo: SEAT

SEAT is helping in the fight against the coronavirus through the production of automated ventilators. They assembled a team of engineers, which produced a total of 13 different prototypes, before a final product was agreed upon and sent to be approved for mass production.

SEAT’s ventilators consist of 80 different electronic and mechanical components, utilising adapted windscreen wiper motors, gearbox shafts and 3D-printed gears, and every completed ventilator undergoes a thorough quality control with ultraviolet light sterilisation. It only took a week for the automaker to repurpose and retrain the 150 odd staff members working at a particular factory that usually churns out cars, to produce ventilators instead.

Photo: Mercedes Benz

Project Pitlane is F1’s response to the pandemic. It is made of up 7 F1 teams (Mercedes-AMG, Aston Martin Red Bull Racing, Racing Point, Williams, Haas, Renault & McLaren), unofficially headed by Mercedes, to develop the Continuous Positive Airway Pressure, or CPAP for short, vital in assisting COVID-19 patients with serious lung infections to breathe more easily, when oxygen alone is insufficient.

The Mercedes boffins, and engineers from University College London, reversed-engineered and produced their CPAP device in just 100 hours, and 100 units have already been delivered for trials. These systems work by pushing a constant flow of air-oxygen mix into the mouth and nose, keeping airways and lungs open and reducing a patient’s need for ventilators later on.

Mercedes didn’t stop there; they then improved on the design, and their second iteration uses up to 70% as compared to the original. The NHS is expecting to need 20,000 of these devices over the coming months, and to cope, Mercedes has temporarily repurposed their F1 engine plant to manufacture these CPAP devices, producing up to 1,000 of these devices a day.

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Credits: Jek Ray Low