Month: February 2021

Exceptional efforts are being made in factories and industrial areas around the world to ensure that hospitals have ventilators and logistics companies have freezers and refrigerators. Behind the scenes, this production offensive has taken place on an epic, unprecedented scale. It was terribly inefficient in some places too.

Some of this inefficiency is only to be expected. Such short-term, responsive production was always chaotic. However, many of the hardware delays we’ve seen – from bottlenecks in the production line to shortages of parts – could be avoided in the future by applying an “open source” ethos to global hardware production.

Open source design is a form of collective intelligence in which experts work together to create a design that everyone has the legal right to create. The software industry has long shown that “open” collaboration is not only possible, but also beneficial. Open source software is ubiquitous, and the servers that power the internet itself are largely powered by open technology jointly developed by competing companies.

As the pandemic began and in recognition of the looming global emergency, dozens of the world’s largest companies joined the Open COVID Pledge and pledged to share their intellectual property to help fight the virus. On a smaller scale, more than 100 project teams have set out to create and share “open” ventilator designs that can be manufactured on-site to meet urgent ventilator needs around the world.

Unfortunately, none of these initiatives succeeded in making ventilators at the speed demanded by stretched hospitals in the first few weeks of the pandemic. After examining existing attempts to share the intellectual property of machines, our recently published paper concludes that to be successful with open hardware, projects must be open from the start. Everything from the first scribble on a napkin to detailed calculations that verify safety must be available if other experts and manufacturers want to participate in the design.

Medical ventilators have been in particular demand since the beginning of the pandemic. Dan Race / Shutterstock

The way to open hardware

Building hardware through open collaboration can be daunting. Unlike all of the virtual collaboration required for software development, hardware development requires physical parts – raw materials and machines. It needs test facilities and engineers to perform stress tests and security checks.

There are promising signs that these challenges can be overcome. The RepRap 3D printing project has brought low-cost 3D printing to a wider audience and enabled affordable remote prototyping. In the meantime, the CERN White Rabbit project has shown that even the complex electronics that control the Large Hadron Collider can be developed as open source hardware. But to be efficient, we need better Workflows for collaboration – systems for organizing the distribution of tasks and responsibilities in collaborative hardware projects.

[Read: How much does it cost to buy, own, and run an EV? It’s not as much as you think]

The path from prototype to production is much more difficult and less exciting than the technical challenge of prototyping a device. Manufacturers must adhere to international standards to ensure quality and manage the risk associated with their products. This is especially true of medical hardware on which life depends. A key challenge for open hardware will be to obtain this certification in the same way that private companies do today.

Regardless of the impressive and safe regulations, ventilators built in rooms for voluntary manufacturers cannot be certified for medical use. For devices that are less strictly regulated, such as B. face protection, open hardware is currently used successfully.

To achieve similar success with high-tech medical devices, companies that can be made from open designs are required – such as dynamic factories that respond to global emergencies. It takes time to build these organizations. But we can’t afford to wait for the next emergency: we should start preparing them today to prepare for the next pandemic.

Of course, it is a challenge to find sustainable business models for open hardware: can a system be created that shares intellectual property for free while helping designers and manufacturers benefit from it? In some ways, open hardware has an advantage here: people are used to buying products that online consumers are used to using software for free.

Still, establishing an open hardware manufacturing ecosystem is likely to require public funding or investor investment in non-traditional business models. This would follow the path of the Internet, which began its life and was funded by public institutions and is now home to the largest private companies in the world.

Closer inspection

The open source microscope. Author provided

We experimented with our own open hardware project to understand what the future of collaborative hardware might look like. Our OpenFlexure microscope is designed for low cost manufacture in sub-Saharan Africa and is used for malaria diagnosis. We’ve probably spent more time designing the processes by which we can effectively share our knowledge than designing the microscope itself.

In the short term, this slows our progress. In the long term, we expect manufacturers around the world to understand our design and adapt it to their local context. As these processes become more standardized, sharing designs for production becomes easier and easier. The final and most ambitious phase of our project will be to work with manufacturers to produce microscopes that are certified for medical use – a big step towards the open source medical hardware that we would need to better combat a future pandemic.

Mankind knew how to make ventilators decades before this pandemic. What was lacking was the access to that knowledge, the ability to work together on customizing a design, and the logistics to quickly scale the manufacture of complex machines. It will take years to address these issues. If we start this process today, we can address global emergencies more dynamically and efficiently in the future.

This article by Richard Bowman, Royal Society Research Associate and Proleptic Reader, Physics Department, University of Bath, and Julian Stirling, Postdoctoral Fellow, Physics Department, Bath University, is republished by The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

This article was originally published by Steve Schaefer on Clean the fleet report, a publication that provides readers with the information they need to switch to the best fuel economy cars and trucks, including electric cars, fuel cells, plug-in hybrids, hybrids, and advanced diesel and gasoline engines.

It was a week of good news for electric vehicles and climate action as General Motors and the new US president announced ambitious plans to tackle global warming. Both have set themselves a goal in fourteen years that, although later than the often-cited goal for 2030 from the Paris Agreement, is a profound step forward.

General Motors is committed

Years ago Charles Wilson, President of General Motors and Eisenhower’s candidate for Secretary of Defense, said, “What is good for the country is good for General Motors and vice versa.” Democrats on the committee focused on the opposite of the statement, but in the modern case it may actually be either way.

The GMC Hummer EV will be one of the first new GM EVs

When GM first announced its intention to switch to electric vehicles and introduced its vision of Zero Crashes, Zero Emissions and Zero Congestion, I was skeptical. After all, this is the company that made its living from gas-guzzling pickups and Chevy Tahoes and promoted Corvettes and Camaros. But they presented the worthy Bolt EV and previously looked at the plug-in hybrid Volt with green technology.

With Tesla in the rearview mirror (or now maybe seen through the windshield!) One of America’s “big three” has officially backed electric cars and has done so announced their plan to have a 100% electric fleet by 2035. GM will introduce 30 new electric vehicles by 2025, including a new all-electric Hummer! They are developing a new flexible platform and the Ultium battery, which they will make themselves. And they’re putting $ 27 billion on the table for it. With their established for a long time Cross-country dealer network and factories in America are off to a good start.

Last night I saw a recording of GM President Mark Reuss speaking with Malcolm Gladwell at CES 2021 for GM Exhibit Zero. He said the right things and put GM’s plan for 30 electric vehicles by 2025 and everything else. GM’s managing director Mary Barra has also formulated the company’s plans quite openly.

Biden is making progress on climate change

President Joe Biden

In the meantime, America’s new president has come up with his plan, and that is exactly what many of us have been waiting for. Immediately reinstating the US in the Paris Agreement and terminating the Keystone XL pipeline were signatures, but Biden’s Announcement of the move to a fully electric fleet was one Eye opener. This is in line with California’s 2035 target of no longer selling new light internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035. The Golden State has led the charge toward lower emissions for decades. It also fits well with GM’s plan.

Ford also plans and releases electric vehicles

Ford will invest more than $ 11.5 billion in electric vehicles through 2022. Emission-free versions of some of its most popular nameplates are on the way, including the Mustang Mach-E, which will be commercially available this year, as well as a Transit Commercial Electric Vehicle and all-electric F-150 coming within 24 months.

The company had previously announced that it would use 100% locally renewable energy for all production facilities worldwide by 2035. This means that energy would only come from sources that replenish naturally – such as hydropower, geothermal, wind or sun.

Ford’s Mustang Mach-E is its first serious EV (by many)

However, as the maker of America’s favorite vehicle for more than four decades, the F-150 pickup truck, they can make a huge impact by tucking an electric motor under the tall hood. And to capitalize on the reputation of their most iconic vehicle, the Mustang, they just unveiled the all-new Mustang Mach-E, an all-electric four-door crossover that targets the Tesla Model Y (with a heavy dash of Mustang’s traditional styling and performance). If these two pillars of the Ford line of products move the sales needle, Ford will make an impact and begin introducing more electrified vehicles.

It’s easy to see the two surviving American automakers step in in America and write big orders for all these electrified fleet vehicles from the U.S. government and make those American factories buzz with green tech jobs. Win-win is everywhere. Of course, this great transition won’t be easy or instant, but the overwhelming weight of the scientific evidence tells us we must do it now.

GM’s Ultium EV platform will be among its future cars

When Mark Reuss answered Malcolm Gladwell’s question: “Why now?” During the interview, he said it was because it was the right thing to do and he wanted a safe, healthy world for his three grandchildren. As a grandparent, I totally agree.

Courageous initiatives by companies, states and national governments have proven effective in Europe and China, and now, under new leadership and in partnership with its automakers, the US is nearing the turning point for electric vehicles. I have more faith now that we can and will achieve this. By the middle of the next decade everything will look the way it should, and once skeptical buyers will be amazed at the new, cleaner, and better technology. Right now, I’m doing everything I can to get us to the EV tipping point and beyond.

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Published on February 3, 2021 – 18:05 UTC