Tesla to quickly reopen Gigafactory New York to make ventilators for COVID-19 patients

CEO Elon Musk announced that Tesla is going to attempt to quickly reopen Gigafactory New York in order to make ventilators for COVID-19 patients in the state.

Several hospitals in the US are finding themselves in need of ventilators to help save patients who are more badly affected by the coronavirus.

In previous comments over the last month, Musk has been skeptical that there’s going to be a need for more ventilators.

The CEO believes that we “may have passed the inflection point for US cases.”

However, that’s excluding New York, which has been hit harder by the virus than any other state.

Tesla shut down its Gigafactory New York in Buffalo earlier this week after lockdown orders have been implemented in various parts of the US.

Now Musk says that Tesla plans to reopen as soon as possible to make ventilators:

Giga New York will reopen for ventilator production as soon as humanly possible. We will do anything in our power to help the citizens of New York.

The news comes after Tesla’s Chinese team and Musk managed to secure a surplus of 1,000 ventilators from China and delivered them to hospitals in California.

At Gigafactory New York, Tesla produces its solar roof tiles as well as other products and accessories, like components for its Supercharger V3.

The company was supposed to hold a company meeting with product announcements at the factory in April. It’s unclear if the plan has been affected by the current crisis at this time.

Tesla is apparently also moving forward with plans to build ventilators at its Fremont factory.

Omar Ishra, CEO of Medtronic, a major medical equipment company, announced this morning that they are working with Tesla to deploy ventilator production capacity at Tesla’s Fremont factory quickly.