How Spain is changing its car industry to build Ventilators against covid-19

By using the windshield wiper engines, SEAT, the spanish car manufacturer is building new ventilators to match the demand of ventilators after the coronavirus Pandemic that put the whole country in lockdown the last 13 of March.

The assembly line where parts of one of the Spanish most iconic cars ( the SEAT LEÓN) has revamped completely in order to meet for the new demand.

According to Nicolás Mora, head of production at SEAT Martorell (Spain), the company has managed to change the whole assembly line that builds the rear axis of the car's chasis and adapt it to build these new ventilators in just three days.

Each one of the ventilators is made up of over 80 different electrical components and passes an exhaustive quality control process that culminates with the sterilisation of the product with ultra violet light. A total of 13 different prototypes were developed in one week until they reached the final model. The final production involved over 150 people from different departments of the company

It is pretty remarcable the way that a single company is able to change a whole assembly line and develop this product in such a short time. Especially in the given times when the pandemic is striking spain hard, with over 7.340 dead to the date. After the pandemic - for which the government declared the state of emergency in the whole country and put over 46 million people in lockdown in their homes - the Spanish government has started to take action in it's industrial core transforming parts of the now stopped industry to serve and benefit the needs of the people.

This type of actions is surely one that will be followed by many other governments as their supplies for mechanical ventilators skyrockets as the pandemic grows around the world. It is one that resembles the strategies followed during the second world war, when countries like the United States, Great Britain or Germany, slowly transformed all of their industry to put into the war effort. Today's war however, is not against an evil regime, but against tiny viruses that threaten the lives of many.