April 14, 2020 • 40 mins
In this episode of CarStuff, Ben and Kurt discuss the amazing adaptations that car companies can make when called upon by circumstance.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Car Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.
Welcome to Car Stuff, folks, thanks for tuning in. I
am one of your hosts, Ben Bolan, and I am
Kurt garn And like many of us now in the
world today, Kurt and I are recording remotely from our
(00:21):
separate bunkers. Our good pal the Walter White to my
Jesse Pinkman Scott Benjamin couldn't make it today but as well,
and sends his regards Kurt. I want to check in
before we get started. How how are you doing? Man?
How How long have you been uh in the in
this lockdown stage? Um? I guess about three three and
(00:42):
a half weeks now. I've been well though, UM, just
hanging in there like many people out there. How about
you been, I've been you know, I've been doing pretty well.
I've actually I've actually taken the habit of just getting
out on the road just to get out of the house.
You know, I'm not really I don't really have a
reason to go anywhere. I don't have because I'm stocked
(01:05):
up on everything I could need. But I've always loved
road trips. I finally got a reliable vehicle before all
this stuff went down. And so for anyone familiar with
the Atlanta area, our fair metropolis usually as terrible, terrible traffic.
And I have been driving around to eight five, which
(01:27):
is an interstate that encircles Atlanta. I've just been driving
around it, and it's a It's a great drive, dude,
because there's never any traffic now used he used to
be notoriously busy and choked up. Uh, and now you
can just zoom on by. I would say, I feel
like we do have to point out if you are
(01:48):
listening and you're in an area where you have been
told that you cannot take any non essential trips, then
please abide by that to the best of your ability.
But I haven't been stopped by anybody, you know. I
haven't been like hot rotting or redlining anywhere. But it's
good to get out there in nature. I mean, I
(02:09):
don't know if you if you all have been going
on any hikes or anything. Oh yeah, It's been very
important for me, at least for my sanity to get
out there and enjoy some of the spring weather, which
I love so much. Um, but running in my neighborhood
and going on walks and uh, just trying to stay
away from those purpose built paths because I hear that
(02:31):
people are all over those these days for some reason.
Oh yeah, yeah, it's it's uh, it's real strange. You know.
I think I think we're learning just how much of
a toll cabin fever can take on people. But as
many folks have said, not just in our country, but
abroad in Australia, in Europe and in Asia, every country
(02:56):
that's dealing with this current COVID nineteen pandemic has said,
at some point, we're all in this together. And this
got you and I thinking about some tremendously impressive acts,
both in the current day and in the past. So, Kurt,
a little while ago off air, you and I were
just kicking around ideas, just shooting the breeze, and we
(03:18):
started talking about how I believe our conversation started when
when we were talking about how Tesla, the electric car
company run by Elon Musk, had pledged to start building
ventilators to help with hospitals that were in short supply
and to help patients who needed these medical devices so
(03:41):
that they could get over the hump of infection, which
can be you know, can be quite dangerous. But a
medical ventilator is something that you wouldn't really expect a
car company to build, even one that's a little bit
more sci fi like Elon Musk, you know, because he's
known for his crazy sci fi ideas. Yeah and less
(04:02):
rewind Uh. Several weeks ago when this thing was ramping
up in the United States and Elon Musk came out
on Twitter and said the coronavirus panic is dumb and
that kind of rubbed people the wrong way. Um, perhaps
what he was saying was that panic isn't necessarily a
productive reaction. So what he has decided to do is
(04:27):
to use some of the minds that he has working
for him at Tesla to create ventilators at hospitals can
use because there is a high likelihood that as this
virus progresses that there will be a need for ventilators
throughout the country. He has also been buying machines from
other places where he can. He's been buying a less
(04:49):
intrusive type ventilator known as a b pat machine and
dot dors in New York at Mount Sinai have been
able to come up with a way to turn these
in fully fledged ventilators. They put out a fifteen page
instruction manual, and now other hospitals can use that manual
to convert these types of machines over to full on
(05:13):
ventilators as well. So all of this um problem solving
an ingenuity is really exciting in a time when there's
not a lot of excitement to be had. So I
guess it can be said that Elon Musk is not
panicking and he's doing what he can to try to help. Yeah. Absolutely,
(05:33):
And you know this is something that I was interested
in because not being a doctor, not being a maker
of ventilators myself, I, like many people, was hearing this
word thrown around on the news, and I didn't know
what a ventilator was, And at first I didn't understand
other than having a factory, I didn't understand what Tesla
(05:57):
could be doing to create these machines. But then once
you learn what a ventilator is, it makes a little
more sense. So a ventilator is a machine that provides
mechanical ventilation. It moves breathable air in and out of
human lungs, so it essentially it breathes for you if
(06:21):
you are unable to breathe, or if you can't breathe
well enough. On your own, so instantly we can see
how this could literally be a lifesaving device for people. Now,
Tesla at this point, as far as we can tell,
their engineers have just made a prototype ventilator. But the
cool thing, the really impressive thing, is that this ventilator
(06:44):
mainly uses car parts, mainly uses things they were already using,
like the Tesla models infotainment system that's what controls the ventilator. Uh,
the Model three touch screening controllers that's also what you
use as an interface, and the oxygen and air mixing
(07:04):
you know, that's something that cars need to do too,
So it makes way more sense than you might think initially.
And there's this pretty great YouTube video that walks through
it that shows L. M. Musk and the Tesla engineers
talking about what they're using and how they're assembling these
things to make working ventilators. Again, they don't have, you know,
(07:27):
the hundreds of thousands of these out now, but the
proof of concept is impressive. I would say, yeah, yeah, definitely,
and like you and I'm sure many out there can
relate to this, but um, the terms of the days
seem to be changing. A month or two ago, I
had no desire to learn what a ventilator was, and
(07:47):
I didn't know what PPE stood for. I didn't know
what herd immunity was UM. But now as we become
more immersed in this world of a pandemic, we are
becoming more familiar with these types of medical terms and devices,
And so I sketched out, based on Tesla's description of
(08:10):
what their ventilator is kind of how it The air
flows down the line. So you have oxygen that comes
in through a hospital air supply that goes into a
mixing chamber, which is a car part that Tesla has
on hand, and then the air flows into a valve
body that controls the air pressure and then um, then
it flows through some sensors to I guess, um determine
(08:32):
the mixture and the pressure of the air. Then it
goes through a filter before it goes into the patient's long,
and then when the carbon dioxide and air exits the long,
it goes through some more sensors and then to an
exhale valve that throttles the pressure on the patients slung. Now,
all this got me wondering about Tesla's credentials as far
(08:56):
as like, can they make these precise medical devices. But
then I thought about how they are a company that
shot one of their cars into space on a rocket,
and they routinely returned those rockets back to Earth, landing
them on a pad in the middle of the ocean.
So I suppose that they could probably find their way
around the ventilator. That's that's a really, really great perspective, man.
(09:19):
That's what I didn't think about, you know, because I
I have given l I musk is fair share of
guff in the past and in past episodes of car stuff,
because there have been times where you know, he's been
a real, uh, shoot for the stars, landing the clouds
kind of guy with his approach to things. But he's
definitely a visionary and you're right, they did put a
(09:39):
rocket into space, so hopefully they can put some air
into lungs. What also interests you and I both about this,
and what we hope interest you listeners, is that this
is not the first time we have seen the auto
industry do what's called a pivot. Right. Tesla is just
one example of some stuff will talk about in a
(10:01):
few minutes, But we have to point out that this
is not a new strategy. It is an extreme strategy.
But the idea that an enormous auto manufacturer might be
able to change their product to help for a greater
good is a pretty old idea. As a matter of fact,
(10:23):
if you look back to the era of World War Two,
here are the United States. The US manufacturing of automobiles
virtually halted from February two to October nineteen. They weren't
making cars or trucks, or semis or auto parts. As
a matter of fact, they weren't doing this on their
(10:46):
own initiative. At first. The government had put in uh
freeze on this, the Office of Production Management. On January one,
nineteen forty two, they said, every ale of every vehicle
is going to be frozen, and we're going to go
on a case by case basis for people or entities
(11:08):
that I can have a contract for delivery of a vehicle, uh,
if they had signed that contract before January one, will
go case by case to see if they can be delivered.
And this is interesting. It ties into something else. The
Office of Production Management, right that was pre existing, but
(11:29):
President Roosevelt creates something called the War Production Board. And
for anyone who has nightmares of big government overreach, this
is a crazy story. Here's what they did. They War
Production Board regulated all industrial production and all allocation of
(11:50):
resources or fuel that could be considered war material, so
they would coordinate heavy manufacturing. They would also have a
very high level of control over things like metal, rubber, oil,
and they even put in wage and price control. So
when all the manufacturers in the US ended their production
(12:13):
of automobiles there in February two, they didn't just you know,
mothball the factories. They started working on other things, and
they started working on things that I guess the best
way to say it. In most cases they were building
things you could not buy your local dealership, right right, right,
(12:34):
And I mean you have to put it in a
little bit of perspective too. So you have World War One,
that was the war to end all wars. After that,
you have the Great Depression. The U. S IS military
was twelve largest behind Brazil shortly before World War Two,
and had the eighteenth largest air force, which the air
force was hugely important. And this overseas battle here and
(12:57):
on two different fronts. World War two, we had the
auto industry. They made you know, airplanes, bombs, torpedoes, helmets, tanks, jeeps,
you know that sort of thing stuff that's more in
their wheelhouse. UM and then uh. One of the famous
examples would be Henry Ford's Willow Run plant. It was
(13:20):
in Ipsilanti, Michigan. Willow Run also developed this nickname will
It Run in the press because it had some issues
getting up and running. But it was a It was
an airplane manufacturing plant that manufactured the B twenty four Liberator,
the long range bomber, and it got to the point
where it could produce almost one per hour. And Henry
(13:40):
Ford was behind all of that, kind of employed his
assembly line techniques to plane manufacturing and they pre manufactured
a lot of parts for the plane and they had
a crazy timeline. Ground was broken in April eighteenth of
nineteen forty one. UM. The building was dedicated in June six,
nineteen forty one. They started making planes later that year.
(14:00):
It took them a little while to get up the
full capacity on this, as you can imagine, there's a
lot of you know, planning and things like that. They
were working with Consolidated Aircraft. They were the company designed
the plane. Henry Ford had engineers working out in California
as well. They produced five miles of drawings per day,
so thirty thousand drawings in total, and by the time
(14:22):
they made it back to Consolidated, ten thousand of those
drawings are obsolete, and apparently Consolidated also had some reworks
along the way, so they would be calling up willow
Run from time to time redirecting the plant to do
things a certain way, because also with these airplanes came
some quality control issues. However, the mere fact they were
(14:44):
able to switch over relatively quickly and make these gigantic
airplanes on the scale that they did is very impressive,
despite some of the issues they had with manufacturing along
the way. It's tough to really convey the enormity of
the change here, both in terms of speed and in
(15:06):
terms of scale. So in April of nineteen two, while
Willow Run is in action, these different representatives from the
auto industry here in the States form something they call
the Automotive Counsel for War Production. And the idea here
was that these companies, these private manufacturers who are usually
(15:28):
competing with each other year over year, quarter over quarter,
they need to learn a new game. They need to
figure out how they're going to share things with their
former rivals. You know, who knows how to build this
component best. It's not something maybe we would advertise to
(15:49):
the public, but we all kind of you know, behind
the scenes, we all know who makes the best version
of this part, Who has the best ability to mobilize
their manpower, Who has the best line on things like
steel and so on? Right? Who do we Who can
we work with? Who can we help? And they had
to do this. This would not have happened without this
(16:12):
extraordinary level of cooperation. I mean just think about it.
Almost like within days, maybe a week or so, after
production of all automobiles officially ceases, these factories are retooled
at a frenetic rate. You know, these gigantic manufacturing machines
have to be like literally jackhammered out of the concrete,
(16:35):
and then you have to bring in these other equally
huge machines to replace them. You gotta strip all the
conveyor belts, you gotta take all the electrical wires you
had hooked up, bundle them together as neatly as possible
while in a devilish hurry. And then they just sort
of tucked it up in the factory ceilings. And they
were trying to be optimistic, like okay, alright, Greg, You're
(16:57):
in charge. You're the guy rolled up the wire or
is you gotta roll them back down and put them
in the right place when this is over, And Greg's like, man,
I should have took better notes. And then even if
(17:17):
they had parts that were not all the way finished
that we're still in the stage of fabrication, they would
be stopped of course, that fabrication process or that assembly process,
and these parts would be shipped off the steel mills,
and the steel mills would re melt the parts. And
the thing that really got me is, you know, one
(17:39):
of the biggest components of manufacturing is going to be
the the die that you use to fabricate auto parts.
At some point they decided that they would even take
the die they had used and they would send those
to salvage to help with the war effort, which means
that they were adding so much extra time him onto
(18:01):
whatever their process would be to become car manufacturers. Again,
they went all in. It was nuts. Oh. By the way,
around this time, the government sets a national speed limit
of thirty five miles per hour boom ah, yes, the
Victory speed limit. So the government instituted this between May
of nineteen forty two and August of nineteen forty five
(18:24):
to reduce gasoline and rubber consumption. And they were also
only selling cars out of the stockpile of pre forty
two production two essential drivers during that time as well,
from forty two to five. So it's just it's interesting
to think about how the country completely shifted during that time.
(18:45):
Even if you weren't in the military at war, you're
at home, the landscape basically changed, you know, giant factories
were being converted or even constructed, and all this on
the heels of the Great Depression. People at home begin
to see things start moving again and progressing forward in
a way that they hadn't seen in years and maybe
(19:08):
for a life, for their lifetime. Like you said, machines
being ripped out of the floor, new machines being placed
in the factories that used to build cars, and now
they're building airplanes, which, um, you would think you would
need a whole new building to go from cars to airplanes,
Like in many cases, I believe that's exactly what they did.
You need all that, you need a lot of space
to roll a plane down an assembly line, oh, one
(19:29):
might imagine. Right. It's interesting because we have a lot
of historical sources that focus on the Big Three during
World War Two. But we have to remember there are
like nine other auto makers in play, right, Yeah, like
Nash and Student Baker. Yeah. Yeah, so we've got Um Bantam, Packard,
(19:55):
Student Baker, uh, Willie's, Overland, Grand Pay, h Hudson, Nash,
Kelvinator Crossley. I mean they What we're saying is that
everybody made their contributions. Now, of course the luminary himself,
Henry Ford, played a massive role here. But what's surprising
(20:15):
you about this? I'd like to kick some numbers for
everybody in the audience here. When it was all said
and done, the US auto industry alone, just the car
makers of this country created of the total US output
of manufacturing to fight in World War two, twenty and
(20:38):
the total value, we would say of the of the
things they made is like well over twenty nine billion dollars.
It's crazy. I guess that would be what they call
the military industrial complex, or what became known as the
military industrial complex, this notion that conflict can fuel industry. Yeah,
(21:01):
Eisenhower is the one who said. He called it the
military industrial congressional complex in his original speech. Yeah, it's
important to say, these fellas weren't going broke doing this.
It's a huge change and it's profoundly inspiring that everybody
was able to come together and support the country. But
(21:21):
it's not like they weren't being paid to do so.
They were getting enormous government contracts. And Ford wasn't exactly
new to making aircraft. They had the Ford tri motor,
which was, um well, not the most successful airplane ever,
but it was. It was no model t Yeah no, right,
(21:43):
But you know it's it's not like they went fully
in a different direction. It's something they had done before. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
So they did have some more expertise, and it was
very smart of them to partner with an aircraft desire, right.
And it was strange because you know, when you think
about it, it makes it it's logical to say, all right,
(22:04):
let's have a auto manufacturer build trucks, build armor cars,
build jeeps, you know, even tanks. But I really appreciate
that you're pointing out how brand new a lot of
this manufacturing was, if not for Ford, for other players
in the game, because General Motors also built planes for
(22:25):
the com for this conflict, right, And in addition to that,
they weren't just assembling planes. They were also producing aircraft components,
which again, outside of Ford they had never really done.
You can look at some of the stuff they've they've
created at the Virginia Museum of Military Vehicles over there
(22:48):
in Oakesville, Virginia. You can see some of the tanks,
Like Buick built a tank that still blows my mind.
Buick built the M A ten Hellcat in Flint, Michigan.
And it looks like a take it. I mean, it
doesn't look like a Buick to me, but it's a Buick. Well,
a lot of people referred to Buicks as tanks even
long after the war, right, yes, I mean that's a
(23:12):
good point. And the thing about this we have to
remember is that regardless like historians love to argue the
what IF's about the great conflict of World War Two,
right like what if what if um event a happened
a little earlier, a little later. You know, we know
how close we were uh to a very different outcome
(23:35):
at times. But regardless of what kind of questions you
want to bandy about with your fellow history buffs, the
fact of the matter is that the US owes a
great deal of its success in World War Two to
the automotive industry. And it's a story that Kurt, I
(23:57):
think you and Scott and I wish was was told
more often, um and so all at all, just to
get a sense of this scale here of how complete
the switch was. I want to point out that in
nineteen forty one more than three million cars were produced
in the US alone. During the entirety of World War Two,
(24:21):
they only made the entire industry only made a hundred
and thirty nine more. Instead, it was all focused on
this war effort, and that war effort, you know, UM,
as inspiring and as amazing as it is, it makes
us wonder, you know, what what happened after the war?
What happened over there at Willow. You know, Willow run itself.
(24:45):
The plant was run by Henry Ford's operation, um, but
the government actually owned the building. So after the war,
Ford decided not to buy the plant. I guess he
figured he didn't need a millions of square foot facilit
city that was tooled for making airplanes. So eventually a
General Motors actually ended up with it, and they closed
(25:06):
it in the two thousand's. But like the building is
torn down, you know, and you would think that there
would be a museum or something at least part of it.
I think part of it is a museum called the
Yankee Air Museum up there in Nippsilany, Michigan. But I
mean more of a museum dedicated to what it once was,
(25:27):
or the manufacturing feats that happened during that time period
or something like that. But um, that is a lot
of real estate to dedicate to a museum. I just
get a little bit down when stuff gets lost to time. Yeah, agreed,
I'm I'm sad that we've missed the chance. But luckily
(25:48):
we know that historians and car fans have not forgotten
this amazing story. M hm. And now more than ever
we see parallels with the current day. It turns out
(26:09):
that as the world confronts the COVID nineteen pandemic, like
you were saying, the auto manufacturers of the planet are
also taking a page from the US auto manufacturers of
World War Two, and we're we're seeing carmakers pivot from
(26:29):
making their typical you know, in their sedans or what
have you, and trying to supply materials, expertise, logistics two
countries that need to end hospitals. Of course, that need
to combat this infection. We mentioned Tesla because you know,
Tesla grabs headlines pretty easily, but there are a lot
(26:52):
of other players in the game, and so we thought
we would talk a little bit about different companies that
are making heavy modifications to their own supply chain, heavy
modifications through many factoring process and their factories to help
fight this battle against this disease. As we tape this,
it's April ninth, So yesterday news dropped that General Motors
(27:17):
had been given a four hundred and eighty nine million
dollar contract from the federal government as a part of
the Defense Production Act to produce thirty thousand ventilators for
the federal stockpile by August. And according to the contract,
six thousand of those ventilators are supposed to be available
(27:37):
by the end of May. UM. So that's just one
of the things that has been happening. I know, Ford
and GM have also been involved with making personal protective
equipment for doctors and hospitals, like masks and face shields
and things like that already, um just kind of on
their own, which is what PPE stands for. Correct. Correct
(27:58):
is one of those acronyms that's very of the times
you know, a month or two ago, I had no
idea what PPE stood for, and now I do. It's
becoming a part of everyone's vocabulary these days. Yeah, and
we know, we know that other industries are play here.
Of course, Ford is assembling more than one hundred thousand
(28:18):
plastic face shields per week as we speak, and it's
it's leveraging it's three D printing capabilities to make medical
equipment parts that require a high level of manufacturing precision.
They're also collaborating with three M on what they call
a powered air purifying respirator. Uh. They want to try
(28:42):
to use off the shelf parts from both companies, essentially
the stuff they just had laying around to assemble these
things and make make it, uh, make the production process
as fast as possible and uh like, for example, they're
taking fans from the F one fifty cooled seat apparatus,
(29:06):
and they're taking Heppa air filters and then they're combining
these with portable battery packs that three M has already
been making for a long time. We do have to
point out, I know some people were were probably going
to ask about this, but the Defense Production Act does
come into play here. GM is being paid, but they're
(29:29):
also being compelled through the Defense Production Act to make this.
The Defense Production Act didn't come from World War Two.
It dates back to nineteen fifty, sort of a response
to the beginning of the Korean War. And since nineteen
fifty it's been reauthorized a ton of times, like fifty times,
more than fifty times. And this is, um. This is
(29:53):
part of the government private industry team up. You know,
picture them like different members of the Avengers, and they're
teaming up to take on their big bad Uh. They're
they're thanos or they're low key or whatever. And that
is the coronavirus. Uh. Really, I don't know. It's not
my best comparison. I'm working live here. UM. But we
(30:17):
also see, for instance, that Mercedes is working to make
positive airway pressure devices and it took him a couple
of days to figure out how to prototype this and
how to test it. They made a hundred for testing
(30:38):
within just a few days, and now they are all
set to produce a thousand a day. So one thing
that's amazing to me, and we've talked about this in
the past on car stuff, is just how powerful scale
of economy can be when you are a large manufacturer,
you know, like a a we we talked about this
(31:02):
with how how the auto industry in some cases emerged
from people who were making bicycles where people who are
making you know, like who also making refrigerators, appliances. It's
it's a weird relationship and it's it's surprising. Like even Lamborghini,
do you hear about this? Even Lamborghini is getting on board. Yeah, Lamborghini. Yeah,
(31:25):
they're they're converting not all of their production plant, but
some departments of it, uh to make make it so
they can create surgical mask and then protective plexiglass shields.
And you know, they have like a a saddlery that
just makes the interiors of all these Lamborghinis. Even even
(31:49):
that group has been repurposed and instead of making custom interiors,
they're making one thousand masks a day. And then they're
also using three D printers to make two hundred medical
shields there in the carbon fiber production plant at their
R and D department, which is pretty pretty crazy, right, Uh?
(32:12):
Ford is you know, we were bragging about Tesla or
giving them their due a little bit in the beginning
of this episode. We should also point out that Ford
is increasing production of general electric healthcare ventilators, so they
were already making these, so it's a little bit different,
but they want to make an extra fifty thod ventilators
(32:32):
in the next one hundred days. I gotta say I
am pretty I am pretty impressed with this, definitely. It's
also nice to see that in an era where manufacturing
is becoming more and more specialized and there are tighter
and tighter tolerances to many manufacturing processes, that the term
(32:55):
manufacturing is manufacturing still holds true in some cases. I
don't think that car companies and other big manufacturers get
enough credit for just pushing out tons of product to
the public on a constant and consistent basis, and that
loan is a giant feat that often goes overlook just
(33:17):
the constant reproduction of components and parts and full on
products that are just ultra consistent, and during times like
this when manufacturers can just up and change it up,
shows you that modern manufacturers can pretty much make anything
with a little bit of retooling and some direction or
(33:40):
some engineering from more specialized companies like gm IS teaming
up with vent Tech Life Systems to make their ventilators.
So that's kind of the that's the company they've brought
on to help them with the specialized aspect of making ventilators,
but obviously all the manufacturing and things like that. GM
has a really good handle on that kind of thing,
just because they make cars, and cars have tons of
(34:02):
different systems in them. Yeah. I mean, that's a really
good point. Even a luddite like me knows that we're
moving increasingly towards the era of the connected car right
the time of this vehicle and stuff, and there's so
much hardware and software that goes into that kind of endeavor.
It naturally can transfer to other sophisticated computer systems, you know,
(34:28):
So it so again the thing I don't know about you, man,
but the thing that baffles me about this is, first off,
we you and I growing up. Uh, we've been uh,
we've been around to see the glory days and the
tough times for the big three manufacturers. And you know,
(34:49):
we've seen times where people in the media are reporting
like massive layoffs and you know, insert company here is
just too slow to adapt to the time and to
adapt to consumer demands. Having seen all that news growing up,
and you know, even in recent years, I remain astounded
(35:10):
by how quickly someone can say, let's take this gigantic
thing and make it do something that appears from the
outside completely different. So if you are working with these companies, Uh,
if you are a member of their family, Uh, you know,
whether you're Lamborghini, whether you're Forward, whether you're GM, whether
(35:32):
you're Tesla, what have you? Hats off to you? Uh,
this is a powerful thing. Yeah, and it's impressive. Um,
and I guess you know for now that that feels
like that feels like our show. Huh. I mean I
think we've we've looked in the World War Two. If
you want more information on that. By the way, check
out some of our World War two episodes in the
(35:55):
Car Stuff Feed. We dive into. We dive into a
couple of stories there in. One other thing that I
wanted to give a shout out to, as it relates
to these car manufacturers that are jumping in and helping
out where they can, is their ability to just stop
on a din and assess the situation, see what needs
(36:16):
to be done, and to rework their operations to be
able to do it. Um, We're gonna look back and
we're gonna probably see some things that could have been
done better. However, when it comes to the private sector
and having to make um probably what for them, they
are very difficult choices. You know, they are probably looking
(36:39):
into the future and trying to see things for what
they are yet what needs to be done right now.
It probably does not align with what they see down
the road, but they still do it and that I
know that that's got to be a tough thing to do.
Yet they probably see it as just what needs to
be done. It just has been a really quick realignment
(37:02):
for these companies to up and start making medical equipment,
even though they may be equipped to do it and
be provided the resources to do it. Um when it
boils down to it, it's not exactly what they do
in the micro term. I mean this particular challenge right now.
It's not exactly like a war where there's a strategy
(37:26):
behind it and you have time to ramp up production
and you're kind of handed this plan of what the
needs would be. This is something that is new in
the playbooks being written kind of in real time with
bad information or incomplete information or information based on models.
Because this is the first time something like this is
(37:49):
happening in our or modern era. UM, so it's just
pretty impressive to see everyone jumping on board and making
it happen. Yeah, yeah, agreed. And that brings us to
our announcement for today. Kurt, you and I have been uh,
we've been rolling with some changes and what what people
(38:13):
have been describing as a new normal. And as we
pivot and as we look at our own manufacturing output, UH,
to to keep the theme consistent, we're going to be
bringing car Stuff to a hiatus just for the foreseeable future. Now, Scott,
(38:34):
Kurt and I are all doing well. UH, and there
you don't need to be concerned about us. Uh. We
are still we are still busy bees. This is a
learning experience for all of us, UH and probably many
of us listening in the audience today. You have had
to drastically retool our day to day operations. UH. We'd
(38:59):
like to give a shout out and a massive thank
you to everybody who has tuned in with car Stuff
over the years. Would also like to in particular, UH,
in this current time, we'd like to give a thank
you to all of the gear heads out in the audience.
Like to give it thanks to all of the truckers
(39:20):
and people working in the transportation industry, keeping these supply
chains around when they are very much vital uh in
a in a very real way. Uh. You are on
the front lines of this uh and we cannot thank
you enough. But that's my attempt to thank you. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
UM i'd like to echo it been said as well,
(39:42):
um Ben it's been a pleasure working with you and
with Scott on car Stuff and putting the show out
to the car Stuff faithful out there. And um i'd
like to say also thanks for you know, sticking with
us through all the bumps in the road and while
we're trying to our wits about us and everyone, just
(40:03):
keep on keeping on and we'll keep it moving down
the road as well, agreed, you know, until then, uh,
you know, keep the keep the rubber side on the
bottom and then we'll we'll see you up the road.
Thanks for listening everyone. Car Stuff is a production of
I Heart Radio. For more podcasts or my Heart Radio,
(40:25):
visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Car Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.
Welcome to Car Stuff, folks, thanks for tuning in. I
am one of your hosts, Ben Bolan, and I am
Kurt garn And like many of us now in the
world today, Kurt and I are recording remotely from our
(00:21):
separate bunkers. Our good pal the Walter White to my
Jesse Pinkman Scott Benjamin couldn't make it today but as well,
and sends his regards Kurt. I want to check in
before we get started. How how are you doing? Man?
How How long have you been uh in the in
this lockdown stage? Um? I guess about three three and
(00:42):
a half weeks now. I've been well though, UM, just
hanging in there like many people out there. How about
you been, I've been you know, I've been doing pretty well.
I've actually I've actually taken the habit of just getting
out on the road just to get out of the house.
You know, I'm not really I don't really have a
reason to go anywhere. I don't have because I'm stocked
(01:05):
up on everything I could need. But I've always loved
road trips. I finally got a reliable vehicle before all
this stuff went down. And so for anyone familiar with
the Atlanta area, our fair metropolis usually as terrible, terrible traffic.
And I have been driving around to eight five, which
(01:27):
is an interstate that encircles Atlanta. I've just been driving
around it, and it's a It's a great drive, dude,
because there's never any traffic now used he used to
be notoriously busy and choked up. Uh, and now you
can just zoom on by. I would say, I feel
like we do have to point out if you are
(01:48):
listening and you're in an area where you have been
told that you cannot take any non essential trips, then
please abide by that to the best of your ability.
But I haven't been stopped by anybody, you know. I
haven't been like hot rotting or redlining anywhere. But it's
good to get out there in nature. I mean, I
(02:09):
don't know if you if you all have been going
on any hikes or anything. Oh yeah, It's been very
important for me, at least for my sanity to get
out there and enjoy some of the spring weather, which
I love so much. Um, but running in my neighborhood
and going on walks and uh, just trying to stay
away from those purpose built paths because I hear that
(02:31):
people are all over those these days for some reason.
Oh yeah, yeah, it's it's uh, it's real strange. You know.
I think I think we're learning just how much of
a toll cabin fever can take on people. But as
many folks have said, not just in our country, but
abroad in Australia, in Europe and in Asia, every country
(02:56):
that's dealing with this current COVID nineteen pandemic has said,
at some point, we're all in this together. And this
got you and I thinking about some tremendously impressive acts,
both in the current day and in the past. So, Kurt,
a little while ago off air, you and I were
just kicking around ideas, just shooting the breeze, and we
(03:18):
started talking about how I believe our conversation started when
when we were talking about how Tesla, the electric car
company run by Elon Musk, had pledged to start building
ventilators to help with hospitals that were in short supply
and to help patients who needed these medical devices so
(03:41):
that they could get over the hump of infection, which
can be you know, can be quite dangerous. But a
medical ventilator is something that you wouldn't really expect a
car company to build, even one that's a little bit
more sci fi like Elon Musk, you know, because he's
known for his crazy sci fi ideas. Yeah and less
(04:02):
rewind Uh. Several weeks ago when this thing was ramping
up in the United States and Elon Musk came out
on Twitter and said the coronavirus panic is dumb and
that kind of rubbed people the wrong way. Um, perhaps
what he was saying was that panic isn't necessarily a
productive reaction. So what he has decided to do is
(04:27):
to use some of the minds that he has working
for him at Tesla to create ventilators at hospitals can
use because there is a high likelihood that as this
virus progresses that there will be a need for ventilators
throughout the country. He has also been buying machines from
other places where he can. He's been buying a less
(04:49):
intrusive type ventilator known as a b pat machine and
dot dors in New York at Mount Sinai have been
able to come up with a way to turn these
in fully fledged ventilators. They put out a fifteen page
instruction manual, and now other hospitals can use that manual
to convert these types of machines over to full on
(05:13):
ventilators as well. So all of this um problem solving
an ingenuity is really exciting in a time when there's
not a lot of excitement to be had. So I
guess it can be said that Elon Musk is not
panicking and he's doing what he can to try to help. Yeah. Absolutely,
(05:33):
And you know this is something that I was interested
in because not being a doctor, not being a maker
of ventilators myself, I, like many people, was hearing this
word thrown around on the news, and I didn't know
what a ventilator was, And at first I didn't understand
other than having a factory, I didn't understand what Tesla
(05:57):
could be doing to create these machines. But then once
you learn what a ventilator is, it makes a little
more sense. So a ventilator is a machine that provides
mechanical ventilation. It moves breathable air in and out of
human lungs, so it essentially it breathes for you if
(06:21):
you are unable to breathe, or if you can't breathe
well enough. On your own, so instantly we can see
how this could literally be a lifesaving device for people. Now,
Tesla at this point, as far as we can tell,
their engineers have just made a prototype ventilator. But the
cool thing, the really impressive thing, is that this ventilator
(06:44):
mainly uses car parts, mainly uses things they were already using,
like the Tesla models infotainment system that's what controls the ventilator. Uh,
the Model three touch screening controllers that's also what you
use as an interface, and the oxygen and air mixing
(07:04):
you know, that's something that cars need to do too,
So it makes way more sense than you might think initially.
And there's this pretty great YouTube video that walks through
it that shows L. M. Musk and the Tesla engineers
talking about what they're using and how they're assembling these
things to make working ventilators. Again, they don't have, you know,
(07:27):
the hundreds of thousands of these out now, but the
proof of concept is impressive. I would say, yeah, yeah, definitely,
and like you and I'm sure many out there can
relate to this, but um, the terms of the days
seem to be changing. A month or two ago, I
had no desire to learn what a ventilator was, and
(07:47):
I didn't know what PPE stood for. I didn't know
what herd immunity was UM. But now as we become
more immersed in this world of a pandemic, we are
becoming more familiar with these types of medical terms and devices,
And so I sketched out, based on Tesla's description of
(08:10):
what their ventilator is kind of how it The air
flows down the line. So you have oxygen that comes
in through a hospital air supply that goes into a
mixing chamber, which is a car part that Tesla has
on hand, and then the air flows into a valve
body that controls the air pressure and then um, then
it flows through some sensors to I guess, um determine
(08:32):
the mixture and the pressure of the air. Then it
goes through a filter before it goes into the patient's long,
and then when the carbon dioxide and air exits the long,
it goes through some more sensors and then to an
exhale valve that throttles the pressure on the patients slung. Now,
all this got me wondering about Tesla's credentials as far
(08:56):
as like, can they make these precise medical devices. But
then I thought about how they are a company that
shot one of their cars into space on a rocket,
and they routinely returned those rockets back to Earth, landing
them on a pad in the middle of the ocean.
So I suppose that they could probably find their way
around the ventilator. That's that's a really, really great perspective, man.
(09:19):
That's what I didn't think about, you know, because I
I have given l I musk is fair share of
guff in the past and in past episodes of car stuff,
because there have been times where you know, he's been
a real, uh, shoot for the stars, landing the clouds
kind of guy with his approach to things. But he's
definitely a visionary and you're right, they did put a
(09:39):
rocket into space, so hopefully they can put some air
into lungs. What also interests you and I both about this,
and what we hope interest you listeners, is that this
is not the first time we have seen the auto
industry do what's called a pivot. Right. Tesla is just
one example of some stuff will talk about in a
(10:01):
few minutes, But we have to point out that this
is not a new strategy. It is an extreme strategy.
But the idea that an enormous auto manufacturer might be
able to change their product to help for a greater
good is a pretty old idea. As a matter of fact,
(10:23):
if you look back to the era of World War Two,
here are the United States. The US manufacturing of automobiles
virtually halted from February two to October nineteen. They weren't
making cars or trucks, or semis or auto parts. As
a matter of fact, they weren't doing this on their
(10:46):
own initiative. At first. The government had put in uh
freeze on this, the Office of Production Management. On January one,
nineteen forty two, they said, every ale of every vehicle
is going to be frozen, and we're going to go
on a case by case basis for people or entities
(11:08):
that I can have a contract for delivery of a vehicle, uh,
if they had signed that contract before January one, will
go case by case to see if they can be delivered.
And this is interesting. It ties into something else. The
Office of Production Management, right that was pre existing, but
(11:29):
President Roosevelt creates something called the War Production Board. And
for anyone who has nightmares of big government overreach, this
is a crazy story. Here's what they did. They War
Production Board regulated all industrial production and all allocation of
(11:50):
resources or fuel that could be considered war material, so
they would coordinate heavy manufacturing. They would also have a
very high level of control over things like metal, rubber, oil,
and they even put in wage and price control. So
when all the manufacturers in the US ended their production
(12:13):
of automobiles there in February two, they didn't just you know,
mothball the factories. They started working on other things, and
they started working on things that I guess the best
way to say it. In most cases they were building
things you could not buy your local dealership, right right, right,
(12:34):
And I mean you have to put it in a
little bit of perspective too. So you have World War One,
that was the war to end all wars. After that,
you have the Great Depression. The U. S IS military
was twelve largest behind Brazil shortly before World War Two,
and had the eighteenth largest air force, which the air
force was hugely important. And this overseas battle here and
(12:57):
on two different fronts. World War two, we had the
auto industry. They made you know, airplanes, bombs, torpedoes, helmets, tanks, jeeps,
you know that sort of thing stuff that's more in
their wheelhouse. UM and then uh. One of the famous
examples would be Henry Ford's Willow Run plant. It was
(13:20):
in Ipsilanti, Michigan. Willow Run also developed this nickname will
It Run in the press because it had some issues
getting up and running. But it was a It was
an airplane manufacturing plant that manufactured the B twenty four Liberator,
the long range bomber, and it got to the point
where it could produce almost one per hour. And Henry
(13:40):
Ford was behind all of that, kind of employed his
assembly line techniques to plane manufacturing and they pre manufactured
a lot of parts for the plane and they had
a crazy timeline. Ground was broken in April eighteenth of
nineteen forty one. UM. The building was dedicated in June six,
nineteen forty one. They started making planes later that year.
(14:00):
It took them a little while to get up the
full capacity on this, as you can imagine, there's a
lot of you know, planning and things like that. They
were working with Consolidated Aircraft. They were the company designed
the plane. Henry Ford had engineers working out in California
as well. They produced five miles of drawings per day,
so thirty thousand drawings in total, and by the time
(14:22):
they made it back to Consolidated, ten thousand of those
drawings are obsolete, and apparently Consolidated also had some reworks
along the way, so they would be calling up willow
Run from time to time redirecting the plant to do
things a certain way, because also with these airplanes came
some quality control issues. However, the mere fact they were
(14:44):
able to switch over relatively quickly and make these gigantic
airplanes on the scale that they did is very impressive,
despite some of the issues they had with manufacturing along
the way. It's tough to really convey the enormity of
the change here, both in terms of speed and in
(15:06):
terms of scale. So in April of nineteen two, while
Willow Run is in action, these different representatives from the
auto industry here in the States form something they call
the Automotive Counsel for War Production. And the idea here
was that these companies, these private manufacturers who are usually
(15:28):
competing with each other year over year, quarter over quarter,
they need to learn a new game. They need to
figure out how they're going to share things with their
former rivals. You know, who knows how to build this
component best. It's not something maybe we would advertise to
(15:49):
the public, but we all kind of you know, behind
the scenes, we all know who makes the best version
of this part, Who has the best ability to mobilize
their manpower, Who has the best line on things like
steel and so on? Right? Who do we Who can
we work with? Who can we help? And they had
to do this. This would not have happened without this
(16:12):
extraordinary level of cooperation. I mean just think about it.
Almost like within days, maybe a week or so, after
production of all automobiles officially ceases, these factories are retooled
at a frenetic rate. You know, these gigantic manufacturing machines
have to be like literally jackhammered out of the concrete,
(16:35):
and then you have to bring in these other equally
huge machines to replace them. You gotta strip all the
conveyor belts, you gotta take all the electrical wires you
had hooked up, bundle them together as neatly as possible
while in a devilish hurry. And then they just sort
of tucked it up in the factory ceilings. And they
were trying to be optimistic, like okay, alright, Greg, You're
(16:57):
in charge. You're the guy rolled up the wire or
is you gotta roll them back down and put them
in the right place when this is over, And Greg's like, man,
I should have took better notes. And then even if
(17:17):
they had parts that were not all the way finished
that we're still in the stage of fabrication, they would
be stopped of course, that fabrication process or that assembly process,
and these parts would be shipped off the steel mills,
and the steel mills would re melt the parts. And
the thing that really got me is, you know, one
(17:39):
of the biggest components of manufacturing is going to be
the the die that you use to fabricate auto parts.
At some point they decided that they would even take
the die they had used and they would send those
to salvage to help with the war effort, which means
that they were adding so much extra time him onto
(18:01):
whatever their process would be to become car manufacturers. Again,
they went all in. It was nuts. Oh. By the way,
around this time, the government sets a national speed limit
of thirty five miles per hour boom ah, yes, the
Victory speed limit. So the government instituted this between May
of nineteen forty two and August of nineteen forty five
(18:24):
to reduce gasoline and rubber consumption. And they were also
only selling cars out of the stockpile of pre forty
two production two essential drivers during that time as well,
from forty two to five. So it's just it's interesting
to think about how the country completely shifted during that time.
(18:45):
Even if you weren't in the military at war, you're
at home, the landscape basically changed, you know, giant factories
were being converted or even constructed, and all this on
the heels of the Great Depression. People at home begin
to see things start moving again and progressing forward in
a way that they hadn't seen in years and maybe
(19:08):
for a life, for their lifetime. Like you said, machines
being ripped out of the floor, new machines being placed
in the factories that used to build cars, and now
they're building airplanes, which, um, you would think you would
need a whole new building to go from cars to airplanes,
Like in many cases, I believe that's exactly what they did.
You need all that, you need a lot of space
to roll a plane down an assembly line, oh, one
(19:29):
might imagine. Right. It's interesting because we have a lot
of historical sources that focus on the Big Three during
World War Two. But we have to remember there are
like nine other auto makers in play, right, Yeah, like
Nash and Student Baker. Yeah. Yeah, so we've got Um Bantam, Packard,
(19:55):
Student Baker, uh, Willie's, Overland, Grand Pay, h Hudson, Nash,
Kelvinator Crossley. I mean they What we're saying is that
everybody made their contributions. Now, of course the luminary himself,
Henry Ford, played a massive role here. But what's surprising
(20:15):
you about this? I'd like to kick some numbers for
everybody in the audience here. When it was all said
and done, the US auto industry alone, just the car
makers of this country created of the total US output
of manufacturing to fight in World War two, twenty and
(20:38):
the total value, we would say of the of the
things they made is like well over twenty nine billion dollars.
It's crazy. I guess that would be what they call
the military industrial complex, or what became known as the
military industrial complex, this notion that conflict can fuel industry. Yeah,
(21:01):
Eisenhower is the one who said. He called it the
military industrial congressional complex in his original speech. Yeah, it's
important to say, these fellas weren't going broke doing this.
It's a huge change and it's profoundly inspiring that everybody
was able to come together and support the country. But
(21:21):
it's not like they weren't being paid to do so.
They were getting enormous government contracts. And Ford wasn't exactly
new to making aircraft. They had the Ford tri motor,
which was, um well, not the most successful airplane ever,
but it was. It was no model t Yeah no, right,
(21:43):
But you know it's it's not like they went fully
in a different direction. It's something they had done before. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
So they did have some more expertise, and it was
very smart of them to partner with an aircraft desire, right.
And it was strange because you know, when you think
about it, it makes it it's logical to say, all right,
(22:04):
let's have a auto manufacturer build trucks, build armor cars,
build jeeps, you know, even tanks. But I really appreciate
that you're pointing out how brand new a lot of
this manufacturing was, if not for Ford, for other players
in the game, because General Motors also built planes for
(22:25):
the com for this conflict, right, And in addition to that,
they weren't just assembling planes. They were also producing aircraft components,
which again, outside of Ford they had never really done.
You can look at some of the stuff they've they've
created at the Virginia Museum of Military Vehicles over there
(22:48):
in Oakesville, Virginia. You can see some of the tanks,
Like Buick built a tank that still blows my mind.
Buick built the M A ten Hellcat in Flint, Michigan.
And it looks like a take it. I mean, it
doesn't look like a Buick to me, but it's a Buick. Well,
a lot of people referred to Buicks as tanks even
long after the war, right, yes, I mean that's a
(23:12):
good point. And the thing about this we have to
remember is that regardless like historians love to argue the
what IF's about the great conflict of World War Two,
right like what if what if um event a happened
a little earlier, a little later. You know, we know
how close we were uh to a very different outcome
(23:35):
at times. But regardless of what kind of questions you
want to bandy about with your fellow history buffs, the
fact of the matter is that the US owes a
great deal of its success in World War Two to
the automotive industry. And it's a story that Kurt, I
(23:57):
think you and Scott and I wish was was told
more often, um and so all at all, just to
get a sense of this scale here of how complete
the switch was. I want to point out that in
nineteen forty one more than three million cars were produced
in the US alone. During the entirety of World War Two,
(24:21):
they only made the entire industry only made a hundred
and thirty nine more. Instead, it was all focused on
this war effort, and that war effort, you know, UM,
as inspiring and as amazing as it is, it makes
us wonder, you know, what what happened after the war?
What happened over there at Willow. You know, Willow run itself.
(24:45):
The plant was run by Henry Ford's operation, um, but
the government actually owned the building. So after the war,
Ford decided not to buy the plant. I guess he
figured he didn't need a millions of square foot facilit
city that was tooled for making airplanes. So eventually a
General Motors actually ended up with it, and they closed
(25:06):
it in the two thousand's. But like the building is
torn down, you know, and you would think that there
would be a museum or something at least part of it.
I think part of it is a museum called the
Yankee Air Museum up there in Nippsilany, Michigan. But I
mean more of a museum dedicated to what it once was,
(25:27):
or the manufacturing feats that happened during that time period
or something like that. But um, that is a lot
of real estate to dedicate to a museum. I just
get a little bit down when stuff gets lost to time. Yeah, agreed,
I'm I'm sad that we've missed the chance. But luckily
(25:48):
we know that historians and car fans have not forgotten
this amazing story. M hm. And now more than ever
we see parallels with the current day. It turns out
(26:09):
that as the world confronts the COVID nineteen pandemic, like
you were saying, the auto manufacturers of the planet are
also taking a page from the US auto manufacturers of
World War Two, and we're we're seeing carmakers pivot from
(26:29):
making their typical you know, in their sedans or what
have you, and trying to supply materials, expertise, logistics two
countries that need to end hospitals. Of course, that need
to combat this infection. We mentioned Tesla because you know,
Tesla grabs headlines pretty easily, but there are a lot
(26:52):
of other players in the game, and so we thought
we would talk a little bit about different companies that
are making heavy modifications to their own supply chain, heavy
modifications through many factoring process and their factories to help
fight this battle against this disease. As we tape this,
it's April ninth, So yesterday news dropped that General Motors
(27:17):
had been given a four hundred and eighty nine million
dollar contract from the federal government as a part of
the Defense Production Act to produce thirty thousand ventilators for
the federal stockpile by August. And according to the contract,
six thousand of those ventilators are supposed to be available
(27:37):
by the end of May. UM. So that's just one
of the things that has been happening. I know, Ford
and GM have also been involved with making personal protective
equipment for doctors and hospitals, like masks and face shields
and things like that already, um just kind of on
their own, which is what PPE stands for. Correct. Correct
(27:58):
is one of those acronyms that's very of the times
you know, a month or two ago, I had no
idea what PPE stood for, and now I do. It's
becoming a part of everyone's vocabulary these days. Yeah, and
we know, we know that other industries are play here.
Of course, Ford is assembling more than one hundred thousand
(28:18):
plastic face shields per week as we speak, and it's
it's leveraging it's three D printing capabilities to make medical
equipment parts that require a high level of manufacturing precision.
They're also collaborating with three M on what they call
a powered air purifying respirator. Uh. They want to try
(28:42):
to use off the shelf parts from both companies, essentially
the stuff they just had laying around to assemble these
things and make make it, uh, make the production process
as fast as possible and uh like, for example, they're
taking fans from the F one fifty cooled seat apparatus,
(29:06):
and they're taking Heppa air filters and then they're combining
these with portable battery packs that three M has already
been making for a long time. We do have to
point out, I know some people were were probably going
to ask about this, but the Defense Production Act does
come into play here. GM is being paid, but they're
(29:29):
also being compelled through the Defense Production Act to make this.
The Defense Production Act didn't come from World War Two.
It dates back to nineteen fifty, sort of a response
to the beginning of the Korean War. And since nineteen
fifty it's been reauthorized a ton of times, like fifty times,
more than fifty times. And this is, um. This is
(29:53):
part of the government private industry team up. You know,
picture them like different members of the Avengers, and they're
teaming up to take on their big bad Uh. They're
they're thanos or they're low key or whatever. And that
is the coronavirus. Uh. Really, I don't know. It's not
my best comparison. I'm working live here. UM. But we
(30:17):
also see, for instance, that Mercedes is working to make
positive airway pressure devices and it took him a couple
of days to figure out how to prototype this and
how to test it. They made a hundred for testing
(30:38):
within just a few days, and now they are all
set to produce a thousand a day. So one thing
that's amazing to me, and we've talked about this in
the past on car stuff, is just how powerful scale
of economy can be when you are a large manufacturer,
you know, like a a we we talked about this
(31:02):
with how how the auto industry in some cases emerged
from people who were making bicycles where people who are
making you know, like who also making refrigerators, appliances. It's
it's a weird relationship and it's it's surprising. Like even Lamborghini,
do you hear about this? Even Lamborghini is getting on board. Yeah, Lamborghini. Yeah,
(31:25):
they're they're converting not all of their production plant, but
some departments of it, uh to make make it so
they can create surgical mask and then protective plexiglass shields.
And you know, they have like a a saddlery that
just makes the interiors of all these Lamborghinis. Even even
(31:49):
that group has been repurposed and instead of making custom interiors,
they're making one thousand masks a day. And then they're
also using three D printers to make two hundred medical
shields there in the carbon fiber production plant at their
R and D department, which is pretty pretty crazy, right, Uh?
(32:12):
Ford is you know, we were bragging about Tesla or
giving them their due a little bit in the beginning
of this episode. We should also point out that Ford
is increasing production of general electric healthcare ventilators, so they
were already making these, so it's a little bit different,
but they want to make an extra fifty thod ventilators
(32:32):
in the next one hundred days. I gotta say I
am pretty I am pretty impressed with this, definitely. It's
also nice to see that in an era where manufacturing
is becoming more and more specialized and there are tighter
and tighter tolerances to many manufacturing processes, that the term
(32:55):
manufacturing is manufacturing still holds true in some cases. I
don't think that car companies and other big manufacturers get
enough credit for just pushing out tons of product to
the public on a constant and consistent basis, and that
loan is a giant feat that often goes overlook just
(33:17):
the constant reproduction of components and parts and full on
products that are just ultra consistent, and during times like
this when manufacturers can just up and change it up,
shows you that modern manufacturers can pretty much make anything
with a little bit of retooling and some direction or
(33:40):
some engineering from more specialized companies like gm IS teaming
up with vent Tech Life Systems to make their ventilators.
So that's kind of the that's the company they've brought
on to help them with the specialized aspect of making ventilators,
but obviously all the manufacturing and things like that. GM
has a really good handle on that kind of thing,
just because they make cars, and cars have tons of
(34:02):
different systems in them. Yeah. I mean, that's a really
good point. Even a luddite like me knows that we're
moving increasingly towards the era of the connected car right
the time of this vehicle and stuff, and there's so
much hardware and software that goes into that kind of endeavor.
It naturally can transfer to other sophisticated computer systems, you know,
(34:28):
So it so again the thing I don't know about you, man,
but the thing that baffles me about this is, first off,
we you and I growing up. Uh, we've been uh,
we've been around to see the glory days and the
tough times for the big three manufacturers. And you know,
(34:49):
we've seen times where people in the media are reporting
like massive layoffs and you know, insert company here is
just too slow to adapt to the time and to
adapt to consumer demands. Having seen all that news growing up,
and you know, even in recent years, I remain astounded
(35:10):
by how quickly someone can say, let's take this gigantic
thing and make it do something that appears from the
outside completely different. So if you are working with these companies, Uh,
if you are a member of their family, Uh, you know,
whether you're Lamborghini, whether you're Forward, whether you're GM, whether
(35:32):
you're Tesla, what have you? Hats off to you? Uh,
this is a powerful thing. Yeah, and it's impressive. Um,
and I guess you know for now that that feels
like that feels like our show. Huh. I mean I
think we've we've looked in the World War Two. If
you want more information on that. By the way, check
out some of our World War two episodes in the
(35:55):
Car Stuff Feed. We dive into. We dive into a
couple of stories there in. One other thing that I
wanted to give a shout out to, as it relates
to these car manufacturers that are jumping in and helping
out where they can, is their ability to just stop
on a din and assess the situation, see what needs
(36:16):
to be done, and to rework their operations to be
able to do it. Um, We're gonna look back and
we're gonna probably see some things that could have been
done better. However, when it comes to the private sector
and having to make um probably what for them, they
are very difficult choices. You know, they are probably looking
(36:39):
into the future and trying to see things for what
they are yet what needs to be done right now.
It probably does not align with what they see down
the road, but they still do it and that I
know that that's got to be a tough thing to do.
Yet they probably see it as just what needs to
be done. It just has been a really quick realignment
(37:02):
for these companies to up and start making medical equipment,
even though they may be equipped to do it and
be provided the resources to do it. Um when it
boils down to it, it's not exactly what they do
in the micro term. I mean this particular challenge right now.
It's not exactly like a war where there's a strategy
(37:26):
behind it and you have time to ramp up production
and you're kind of handed this plan of what the
needs would be. This is something that is new in
the playbooks being written kind of in real time with
bad information or incomplete information or information based on models.
Because this is the first time something like this is
(37:49):
happening in our or modern era. UM, so it's just
pretty impressive to see everyone jumping on board and making
it happen. Yeah, yeah, agreed. And that brings us to
our announcement for today. Kurt, you and I have been uh,
we've been rolling with some changes and what what people
(38:13):
have been describing as a new normal. And as we
pivot and as we look at our own manufacturing output, UH,
to to keep the theme consistent, we're going to be
bringing car Stuff to a hiatus just for the foreseeable future. Now, Scott,
(38:34):
Kurt and I are all doing well. UH, and there
you don't need to be concerned about us. Uh. We
are still we are still busy bees. This is a
learning experience for all of us, UH and probably many
of us listening in the audience today. You have had
to drastically retool our day to day operations. UH. We'd
(38:59):
like to give a shout out and a massive thank
you to everybody who has tuned in with car Stuff
over the years. Would also like to in particular, UH,
in this current time, we'd like to give a thank
you to all of the gear heads out in the audience.
Like to give it thanks to all of the truckers
(39:20):
and people working in the transportation industry, keeping these supply
chains around when they are very much vital uh in
a in a very real way. Uh. You are on
the front lines of this uh and we cannot thank
you enough. But that's my attempt to thank you. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
UM i'd like to echo it been said as well,
(39:42):
um Ben it's been a pleasure working with you and
with Scott on car Stuff and putting the show out
to the car Stuff faithful out there. And um i'd
like to say also thanks for you know, sticking with
us through all the bumps in the road and while
we're trying to our wits about us and everyone, just
(40:03):
keep on keeping on and we'll keep it moving down
the road as well, agreed, you know, until then, uh,
you know, keep the keep the rubber side on the
bottom and then we'll we'll see you up the road.
Thanks for listening everyone. Car Stuff is a production of
I Heart Radio. For more podcasts or my Heart Radio,
(40:25):
visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
CarStuff News
Hosts And Creators
Scott Benjamin
Ben Bowlin
Popular Podcasts
1. Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
2. Stuff You Missed in History Class
Join Holly and Tracy as they bring you the greatest and strangest Stuff You Missed In History Class in this podcast by iHeartRadio.
3. Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.