BYD is sharing a new video telling the story of how the electric vehicle manufacturer created what it says is the world’s largest PPE face-mask plant.

The plant, created earlier this year, is now running at full capacity and can produce 50 million masks per day. This allows BYD to help alleviate severe shortages affecting hospitals and agencies across the globe due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

In late January, BYD began assisting with production of masks and disinfection gels to tackle the growing pandemic. A special task force was appointed by BYD Chairman and President Wang Chuanfu, consisting of leaders from different business divisions and more than 3,000 engineers involved in research and development, design, processing, and other roles.

The task force completed both the R&D and manufacturing process of mask-production equipment within seven days, as opposed to the normal length of 15 to 30 days to fully manufacture a mask-producing machine.

By Feb. 8, the newly built production lines in one of BYD’s industrial parks in Shenzhen began producing these critical supplies, thanks to hundreds of staff working both day and night shifts, along with machines working around the clock.

BYD announced it will donate $1 million in medical supplies, including personal protective equipment (PPE) and hand sanitizer, to transit agencies and first responders in the U.S. and Canada.

The supplies are arriving at various U.S. distributions centers to be closer to those locations where they are needed most. The supplies include FDA-approved adult surgical masks and KN-95 respiratory protective devices as well as hand sanitizer.

Several thousand PPEs have already been delivered to agencies including the City of Los Angeles, the Valley Medical Center in San Jose, Calif., the Toronto Transit Commission, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Originally posted on Government Fleet

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