The company has also donated €10 million ($10,811,500) in support of the Italian Civil Protection Department.
Ferrari is helping the country where they are founded as the car company has teamed up with the Italian Institute of Technology (ITT) to make low-cost ventilators in an effort to aid hospitals slammed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ferrari answered the call from the ITT to help craft and make the ventilators to ease the burden of health services in the country.
The initiative was “a desire to make generally available to everyone going through this emergency in Italy and indeed in the rest of the world, not only the excellent production facilities and support for the many initiatives in the area put in place by Ferrari, but also the creativity, quick reaction times,” Ferrari said in a statement.
Italy at one point was the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. Thus far, the country has amassed over 222,000 cases. More than 31,100 people died from the virus, while over 113,000 people have recovered.
The flashy car company unveiled the FI5 this week, an inexpensive ventilation system design has been released for anyone to produce across the world.
“The project goes by the codename FI5: the letters being the initials of the Maranello marque and the research institute based in Genoa, while the number indicates the number of weeks required to produce a fully functioning prototype, starting from a clean sheet of paper,” the car company said in a statement.
They added that the FI5 is a “reliable, versatile, easy-to-use and assemble ventilator,” and have already been in contact with companies in United States and Mexico as well as other Italian companies to start producing them.
"This project was a very stimulating experience as well as being truly rewarding for all those involved, who worked side by side with our colleagues from IIT and the other partners. It is initiatives like these that make #essereFerrari (Translation: #ToBeFerrari) not just a slogan but a distinctive feature of our identity, Ferrari head Mattia Binotto said in a statement.
The company has also donated €10 million ($10,811,500) in support of the Italian Civil Protection Department.
Ferrari is not the only major company helping their home country and the world during the pandemic.
In March, high-end French fashion house Louis Vuitton began making hand sanitizer for their country and soon after made it available to the world. The company has also donated 2,500 masks to New York City MTA employees and made masks for French healthcare workers. Fellow French company Chanel did the same.
In April, British fashion house Burberry started manufacturing masks for the National Health Services of the United Kingdom. Italian brand Prada also made masks for hospital workers in the Tuscany region of the country as well as medical overalls.
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