Company behind first 'Made in Sri Lanka' E-supercar shifts gear to ventilator

Supercars can wait. So can electric supercars. Ventilators cannot. That appears to be the message reverberating at Vega Innovations, a company that till recently was on the fast track to develop Sri Lanka's first homemade electric supercar. Now, the focus is on saving lives by developing technology that could assist in ventilator production.

Vega Innovations has jumped in to battle Covid-19 in the tiny island nation in the Indian Ocean by developing low-cost medical ventilators. A subsidiary of CodeGen Group of Companies, Vega Innovations has claimed that the low-cost easily scalable medical ventilator has been tested in the country medical professionals in the Ministry of Health of Sri Lanka.

The company stated that to address the increasing need of ventilators, a crucial medical equipment needed in the fight against Covid-19, it had put together a team to develop it in just 10 days. Much like its supercars, these ventilators are completely engineered in Sri Lanka and claim to have a 24/7 hardware and software teams ready for any assistance. "This particular medical ventilator is designed for treating coronavirus patients in their critical phase, operates in Volume Controlled – Continuous Mandatory Ventilation (VC-CMV) mode," the company informs. "It takes into the account the drawbacks of the more popular Ambu bag-based design and adds vital features needed to revive coronavirus patients at full-tilt."

Vega Innovations have further said that the equipment can be developed locally in any other country as well 'by implementing the technology and design architecture to be manufactured under USD 650 per unit.'

It is important to note here that the ventilator developed is waiting for a thorough test and review from medical specialists who need to approve the design. Once the path is cleared, these ventilators are all set to go in for production and then deployed to public and private hospitals in the country. The company states that the project is backed by CodeGen which would enable mass manufacturing.

Vega Innovations has come a fair distance from first making news for its ingenuously developed electric supercar to now manufacturing ventilators. Called Vega, the electric supercar had previously been described by the company as a way to showcase the ability of Sri Lanka to develop its capabilities in the electric mobility sphere and address the rising aspirations of youngsters here. Powered by a 300 kw battery pack which gives it a range of 240 kilometers, the vehicle reportedly does zero to 100 kmph in just 3.1 seconds and produces 900 bhp of peak power figures.

And while work on the electric supercar is likely to continue, the emphasis currently remains on the pressing medical need. According to Johns Hopkins coronavirus tracker, Sri Lanka had 1,182 Covid-19 positive cases and had reported 10 deaths at the time of filing this report.