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Tesla Ventilator

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Re: Tesla Ventilator

#71

Post by op03 »

Robotbeat wrote: post #56
op03 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free PR nothing else (and nothing wrong with that). Those engineers didn't call up the marketing/pr dept and ask for a professional video crew to show up - "cause we just want to share an update with the world".

It’s more than that. Tesla engineers themselves probably are itching to help. Check out GE’s workers getting mad that the company wasn’t helping to make ventilators. People join companies like Tesla and SpaceX because they want to be challenged, have a bias for action (of course, everything still needs to be qualified), and make the world a better place. In a global pandemic that can be helped by addressing a shortag…

That's pretty much what Trump and his team say too. It's all PR to me, until they are standing next to their product, in use, saving lives.

Re: Tesla Ventilator

#72

Post by simion314 »

baybal2 wrote: post #61
xenonite wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure about your conclusion of banning exports. Your link at SCMP says "companies must demonstrate to the Chinese customs agency that their products meet the relevant standards of the countries to which there goods are being exported." Isn't this also a good idea to ensure quality?

> Your link at SCMP says "companies must demonstrate to the Chinese customs agency that their products meet the relevant standards of the countries to which there goods are being exported." > Isn't this also a good idea to ensure quality? May be, but the motivation for such regulation coming out of nowhere, and subsequent closing of reasonable exceptions, is not good at all. It effectively reduced the number of eligi…

>but the motivation for such regulation coming out of nowhere,

I would guess (I have no info and I am just a random dude) that is because the bad press caused by reports of bad tests imported from China.

Re: Tesla Ventilator

#73

Post by product50 »

pdq wrote: post #27

Yes, this is an impressive amount of work done in a few weeks by a small team at Tesla. However, medical devices, especially for life support systems, are not a Hackathon project. These devices breathe air into patients lungs. They need to be manufactured in clean room conditions, with medical grade parts, not plumbing parts from a big box store. They must be designed and tested to ISO specifications. If this fails,…

I knew someone at Hacker News will make a comment like this. Hacker News is cynicism at its finest.

"I can't imagine any hospital or doctor careless enough to connect one of these to a patient, even in this current emergency."

This is utter BS. Imagine that you are in a situation where you are trying to ration lives by selecting who gets access to a ventilator. Won't you not use this device then too?

Please, for god's sake, appreciate and be thankful that we have such great companies in US trying to help our people out. For perspective, if you were in a developing country, like India etc., all you have is hope and no company will be stepping up (they just don't have the technical wherewithalls).

Re: Tesla Ventilator

#74

Post by mschuster91 »

sschueller wrote: post #7

For more background info on what is needed for a ventilator and why it isn't that simple: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22779665

That video's author says he worked for Medtronic. Well... coincidental or not: Medtronic bought up Covidien, who have been alleged to intentionally sabotage a contract with the US government for a national ventilator stockpile back in 2012: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/business/coronavirus-us-v...

Re: Tesla Ventilator

#75

Post by m463 »

pdq wrote: post #27

Yes, this is an impressive amount of work done in a few weeks by a small team at Tesla. However, medical devices, especially for life support systems, are not a Hackathon project. These devices breathe air into patients lungs. They need to be manufactured in clean room conditions, with medical grade parts, not plumbing parts from a big box store. They must be designed and tested to ISO specifications. If this fails,…

You are basically saying "do no harm"

If it becomes a battlefield medicine situation, what should happen?

I remember reading that during WW2 when there was no penicillin, nurses would inject milk I believe into patients, hoping it would stimulate an immune response and save the patient. Seems kind of risky, what are the ethics?

What should we do if we run out of ventilators?

Re: Tesla Ventilator

#76

Post by rumanator »

heleninboodler wrote: post #50
pdq wrote: post #27

Yes, this is an impressive amount of work done in a few weeks by a small team at Tesla. However, medical devices, especially for life support systems, are not a Hackathon project. These devices breathe air into patients lungs. They need to be manufactured in clean room conditions, with medical grade parts, not plumbing parts from a big box store. They must be designed and tested to ISO specifications. If this fails,…

> However, medical devices, especially for life support systems, are not a Hackathon project. This effort they're doing really doesn't seem like they're treating it like a "Hackathon" project. They're putting real engineering resources behind it. Whether or not they can produce something in time is still up in the air, but it seems to me Musk is attacking the problem from several different angles and hoping something…

> This effort they're doing really doesn't seem like they're treating it like a "Hackathon" project. They're putting real engineering resources behind it.

Engineers can and do hackathon work, but real engineering work is way more about verification and validation than hacking stuff together. Products need to ensure that they will work reliably within all operational limits. You don't ensure that with an all nighter and a 3D printer.

That's one of the main reason why software development is not recognized as an engineering field. Verification and validation are the bread and butter, because if that culture doesn't exist and if these efforts don't happen then people die.

Re: Tesla Ventilator

#77

Post by baybal2 »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #69
baybal2 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not clear I think it's 100% clear. > Why did they make this new law that prevents 80% of the accredited companies from exporting medical supplies? Your questions already has an answer: that was made with that exact intent. As I wrote above, even things that should not require any medical certification as such, like medical clothing and bedding, are now being turned around at customs. And those few random compa…

Sorry, I should have been more clear and concise. Why do they want to limit exports from certified companies?

> Why do they want to limit exports from certified companies?

Put some thought to it. It's China, the government here doesn't need to resort to any legal tricks to crack down on anything, especially now.

The sentiment that exports are being banned for fear of faulty tests being sent to export customers? One must be joking. That's, again, China, a country not having any problem with that.

On other hand, exploiting this convenient pretext to deny the West medical supplies, under a guise of an iron wall adherence to the process is unassailable from the West, when the West always poked China for its inability to control exports.

On other hand, the Chinese red cross (which is a 100% state ran organisation here,) has no problem buying, and exporting exactly the same medical supplies, and equipment.

Re: Tesla Ventilator

#78

Post by ComputerGuru »

pdq wrote: post #27

Yes, this is an impressive amount of work done in a few weeks by a small team at Tesla. However, medical devices, especially for life support systems, are not a Hackathon project. These devices breathe air into patients lungs. They need to be manufactured in clean room conditions, with medical grade parts, not plumbing parts from a big box store. They must be designed and tested to ISO specifications. If this fails,…

This is overly dismissive and clearly just a “negative for the sake of being negative” comment. I’m not a Tesla fan, but these arguments don’t really hold water and are very insufficient to just dismiss the whole thing out of hand.

Re: Tesla Ventilator

#79

Post by gpm »

coredog64 wrote: post #68
bArray wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If this fails, the patient can die. If these patients receive no help, they die anyway. Given the choice between almost certain death or some experimental piece of hardware - give me the experimental hardware. > I can't imagine any hospital or doctor careless enough to > connect one of these to a patient, even in this current > emergency. I'm sure they will go through accelerated testing. > The smarter idea is to r…

The US already has a model for this though: During WW2, Ford Motor Company didn't stroke Henry Ford's ego by designing and building their own bombers -- they license built B-24s. Yes, retooling costs. But tooling costs as well, and costs more besides. With Elon's PR reach, I would expect that he could get at least one vent manufacturer to license a design to him for a dollar/handshake/whatever.

Elon's companies are also in parallel working with an existing manufacturer (Medtronic) to produce vents of their design (or more specifically to produce a part that is a bottleneck in their production). Putting a small percentage of resources to trying out a second model (this one) is just good risk management.

Tooling does not cost when they already have it, that is why they are focusing on ways to repurpose parts they are already producing as parts of the ventilator.

Re: Tesla Ventilator

#80

Post by natch »

pdq wrote: post #27

Yes, this is an impressive amount of work done in a few weeks by a small team at Tesla. However, medical devices, especially for life support systems, are not a Hackathon project. These devices breathe air into patients lungs. They need to be manufactured in clean room conditions, with medical grade parts, not plumbing parts from a big box store. They must be designed and tested to ISO specifications. If this fails,…

So discouraging to see such low quality and cynical comments at the top level here.

It's been made very clear over the weeks here on HN how Tesla and SpaceX between them, with their overlapping engineering resources (Elon, for example) have deep experience with life support systems, at a level approved by NASA even. To diss their work as a hackathon project is pretty low.

It's also been widely discussed that this crisis requires us to try some new things, and think outside of the box.

Elon donates massive quantities of masks and various types of the specific breathing devices asked for by medical facilities, and then takes it to the next level, putting his company reputation on the line, and you call it... a publicity stunt.

But when Jack Ma donated masks with a lot of fanfare, you said...

>Kudos to Jack. ... this shows selfless entrepreneurship.

Seems like a bit of a double standard.

>The smarter idea is to ramp up existing proven designs, not reinvent the wheel

Reinventing the wheel has a long history of success. But that's another story. Closer at hand, they already addressed this in the video, and why they did not take the path you thought would be smarter.

Specifically, just to reiterate what was made very clear in the first few seconds of the short video, it would impact supplies needed by existing manufacturers.

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