The first 100,000 patients using ventilators made by GM will be helpless test pilots

[Goonch]

Autos
Trump orders General Motors to make ventilators under Defense Production Act

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/27/trump-orders-general-motors-to-make-ventilators-under-defense-production-act.html

[RockRaven]

1. Can GM find relief in the courts? Do they even have a clue how to make ventilators?

Are they immunized from the legal liability for making a faulty medical device if their vents fail? What about intellectual property infringements? They have no experience with these devices.

What is the limit of the DPA when it comes to ordering companies to do random things? I mean, as a ridiculous example, can the POTUS use the Defense Production Act to order KFC to make Big Macs?

[Goonch]

2. Yes but only as MRE's :-{)

[Massacure]

6. GM already had plans to work with Ventec to produce ventilators

Basically Ventec will provide GM with schematics for whatever parts it needs and GM will use its factories to produce said parts for Ventec.

The DPA provides a number of authorities, some of which require a joint declaration by Congress in order to enact. For example, "The executive branch may create, maintain, protect, expand, or restore domestic industrial base capabilities essential to the national defense through a variety of mechanisms, including purchasing or making purchase commitments of industrial resources or critical technology items; making subsidy payments for domestically-produced materials; and purchasing and installing equipment for government and privately owned industrial facilities to expand their productive capacity." The caveat here is that no industrial project may be more than $50 million, and the President cannot spent more than $750 million across all projects without an appropriate from Congress. I suspect the 2.2 trillion dollar stimulus bill contains authority for Trump to exceed these caps.

As to your question about liability, "The DPA also provides for protection from liability for acting or failing to act in compliance with imposed obligations, even if the obligations are later determined to be invalid". I'm curious if the failure to act part was meant to protect companies like GM in the event that they produce say 8,000 ventilator parts in April 2020 when they were asked for 10,000.

Here's is a good summary of the DPA that I quoted from in this post:
https://www.insidegovernmentcontracts.com/2020/03/a-coronavirus-contractors-guide-to-the-defense-production-act/

[northoftheborder]

3. heh!

[Jirel]

4. I have no problem with this.

Ventilator tech is OLD. It is WELL KNOWN. This is not rocket science. I would have no compunctions whatsoever if someone used a GM ventilator, or one made by a couple groups creating basic and old-tech ones. It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to do its job well enough.

We are spoiled by tech innovations that come about because they can. We don't generally need today's crazy-complicated computerized ventilators. If they even can just save those for the most difficult patients, great. We need a butt-ton of simple ones, but we need ENOUGH of them. No complaints.

[Amishman]

7. Well said, they are pretty simple mechanically

And I imagine if given a choice between a prototype ventilator and none at all, the patient would gladly risk the GM product

[Ace Rothstein]

8. Plus it is exactly what 90% of the posters here have been asking Trump to do.

He needs to do it on a wider scale though.

[procon]

5. Why task an auto plant to make something totally

unrelated to their business? Wouldn't it have made more sense to use manufacturers of related products that use air pumps? The makers of vacuum cleaners, humidifiers, nebulizers, CO2 concentrators, etc., might be able to gear up a lot faster.

[Takket]

9. i was wondering the same thing..........

I think everyone looks at GM and Ford because they built military vehicles for WW2, but that was a long time ago and these are not vehicles. A ventilator is basically a mechanical device to assist breathing and like you have just mentioned there are lots of companies that make similar devices already.

What GM/Ford DO have, is HUGE facilities with LOTS of workers. But the trick is GM/Ford and their suppliers spend YEARS planning and testing and tooling for the parts that are made to go in their vehicles. They doesn't just start building new parts overnight. Which is WHY if the government had PLANNED for this in JANUARY when ALL KNEW this was coming, we could already have had the time we needed to crank out the ventilators!!!!!!

this is ALL on drumpf.

[sarisataka]

10. Wasn't using the Defense Production Act

And having the large manufacturing industries what people were demanding a long time ago? Wasn't that said as recently as this morning?

No we are going to complain when it happens?