Ford community responds to pandemic on local and national scale
Creativity, ingenuity and pride are on full display as everything from medical supplies to meals are being made all over the country.
Ford is helping communities most in need and supporting our customers. As of May 7, our efforts include:
Ventilators: Partnering with GE, we expect to produce 50,000 Model A-E ventilators by early July, with the ability to produce 30,000 a month thereafter. Month-by-month, we have produced:
o 1,500 in April
o 12,000 by end of May
o 50,000 by July 4: helping U.S. gov’t meet their goal of producing 100,000 ventilators in 100 days
• Also helping GE scale on two other ventilators they produce (R19 & R860)
Face Shields: Assembled & shipped over 10 million shields to all 50 states plus Puerto Rico; making one million shields a week.
Face Masks: Millions of masks are approved for Ford employee use, and awaiting certification for medical use.
Reusable Gowns: Working with Joyson Safety Systems, we’ve created re-usable gowns manufactured from material used to make our airbags.
• Production has surpassed 400,000 gowns. 200,000 being made per week.
• By July 4, Joyson Safety Systems will cut & sew 1.3 million gowns – self-tested to federal standards and washable up to 50 times
Ford-Designed Powered Air-Purifying Respirators (PAPRs): With design & testing consultation from 3M, Ford developed a new powered air-purifying respirator
• Approximately 90 paid UAW volunteers have assembled more than 10,000 PAPRs at Ford’s Vreeland facility near Flat Rock, Mich., with the ability to make 100,000 or more
• Ford is capable of increasing 3M’s U.S.-based output of PAPRs & N95 respirators
COVID-19 Collection Kits: Ford is helping Thermo Fisher Scientific triple number of collection kits it can deliver
Additional offerings and developments:
• Sourcing thermal scanners we can distribute to hospitals
• Offering six months payment relief to new customers who need a vehicle; also offering families affected the virus relief on their vehicle payments through Ford Credit.
• Exploring ways to increase the upfitting of Ambulances and other critical vehicles
• Helping hospitals deliver emergency oxygen in the San Francisco Bay Area
• Leveraging our Ford Fund philanthropic arm to support non-profit groups delivery of food to senior citizens and thousands of children who do not have access to school meals
• Converting Transit vans and Ranger pickups into food delivery vehicles for families and seniors in need.
• Repurposed our Lincoln Personal Driver program to deliver food to local Michigan nonprofits.
• Worked with our food service provider, Aramark, to deliver take-out food containers to Pope Francis Center so they can provide to-go meals to homeless people.
• In partnership with UNCF (United Negro College Fund), Ford Fund has established a $100,000 emergency fund for students at historically black colleges and universities who may need financial assistance with travel costs to get home