[Auto] Automotive heroes of the Covid-19 pandemic

[Agent47]

 

 

While 2020 has not been a good year, the tragedy of a global pandemic has shown us the best of humanity – through the selfless efforts of countless individuals and groups to help others in the most difficult circumstances.

Phrases such as ‘hero’ and ‘star’ are too often thrown around liberally, but 2020 has shown who they truly are: the front-line NHS and medical workers who have put themselves at risk to treat others, the healthcare professionals who have looked after the most vulnerable, the essential workers who have kept the country running and those who have put the needs of others above their own.
Support for those heroes often came from unlikely areas. As lockdowns ground the car industry to a halt, many of those involved in it turned to help tackle Covid-19. Car companies and their staff made and donated PPE, helped develop and build vital medical equipment, delivered care packages and more.

Here is a selection of stories showing how the car industry helped in the face of adversity.

Mercedes-AMG - Ben Hodgkinson, head of mechanical engineering, Mercedes High Performance Powertrains

As head of mechanical engineering for Mercedes High Performance Powertrains, Ben Hodgkinson is used to pressure: he helps make the engines that have powered the Mercedes-AMG F1 team to seven straight drivers’ and constructors’ championships. But working on Lewis Hamilton’s engines pales to the challenge of reverse-engineering a small medical device.

“I’ve been in motorsport a long time, so I’ve never known any other pace,” he says. “It can be stressful, but I’ve managed it by saying ‘it’s not life or death’. But this actually was life or death. There was an intensity beyond anything I’ve experienced in F1.”
The WhisperFlow continuous positive airways pressure (CPAP) unit is a mechanical device that enables consistent and effective oxygen delivery to a patient. Hodgkinson became involved in reworking it through his role as a guest lecturer at University College London, a position he was recruited to by Professor Tim Baker. The two had worked together at motorsport firms Mountune and AER.

“When Covid-19 was accelerating in March, Tim called to ask if I could help UCL Engineering work on some respiratory units,” says Hodgkinson. The government focus was on ventilators, but Professor Mervyn Singer and others at UCL Hospital weren’t convinced: their research, and the experience of colleagues in Italy, suggested less invasive CPAP devices could be a better solution. But most modern CPAPs required the same facilities as ventilators, so availability was limited.
“Mervyn found an old WhisperFlow in the UCL museum,” says Hodgkinson. “Tim asked if I could help reverse-engineer it.”

With permission from Andy Cowell, the then boss of Brixworth-based Mercedes HPP, Hodgkinson set off for UCL. “I was imagining a CPAP would be some massive old contraption with bellows and the like, and wondered ‘how can I invent one of those?’ But when I saw a little plastic block with valves in, I went: ‘Wow, that’s easy. We can do that. We can do that fast.’”

Hodgkinson sent photos of the WhisperFlow to Cowell, with a request to rope in some more engineers. “He agreed,” says Hodgkinson. “So three friends drove down to UCL with a lot of measurement kit from our lab.

“We worked through the night, stopped at 4am for three hours, then worked through until 4am again. By that time, we’d got all the modelling down and sent the first block back to Mercedes HPP. A team at the factory had already been looking at materials. Andy had found another WhisperFlow on eBay and the factory had started analysing it with the machines there. We did a full-on reverse-engineering job on it.”