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While much of the U.S. economy has ground to a halt because of the coronavirus outbreak, several dozen workers in orange vests and hard hats were hauling heavy equipment on Sunday at a General Motors plant in Kokomo, Ind. The crew was part of a crash effort to make tens of thousands of ventilators, the lifesaving machines that keep critically ill patients breathing. The machines are in desperate demand as hospitals face the prospect of dire shortages. New York State alone may need 30,000 or more. (Boudette and Jacobs, 3/30)

When President Trump last week criticized General Motors Co.’s GM -0.28% effort to produce ventilators, GM executives were flabbergasted. They felt the company was being unfairly targeted by the president, say people familiar with their thinking. GM had begun collaborating with a ventilator company a couple of weeks earlier. It had mobilized more than 1,000 employees and nearly 100 auto suppliers to start making the machines, which can be used to help patients with the disease caused by the new coronavirus. “We won’t let it deter us,” GM global manufacturing chief Gerald Johnson said in an interview over the weekend. “Every ventilator is a life.” (Colias, 3/30)

Ford Motor Co said on Monday it will produce 50,000 ventilators over the next 100 days at a plant in Michigan in cooperation with General Electric’s healthcare unit, and can then build 30,000 per month as needed to treat patients afflicted with the coronavirus. Ford said the simplified ventilator design, which is licensed by GE Healthcare from Florida-based Airon Corp and has been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration, can meet the needs of most COVID-19 patients and relies on air pressure without the need for electricity. (Carey, 3/30)

The Airon Model A-E ventilator that Ford will produce operates on air pressure alone and requires no electricity. Airon currently makes three of the ventilators per day at its factory in Melbourne, Florida. Ford's plant will produce the ventilators around the clock with three shifts of workers, Ford said, and it will make 7,200 of the devices per week. (Valdes-Dapena and Wattles, 3/30)

As he confronts a global pandemic, President Trump’s attention has also been directed at a more familiar foe: those he feels are challenging him, and particularly women. “Always a mess with Mary B.,” Mr. Trump tweeted last week, attacking the female chief executive of General Motors, Mary T. Barra, as he accused the company of dragging its feet on producing ventilators. “As usual with ‘this’ General Motors, things just never seem to work out,” he wrote, “this” G.M. apparently referring to the one led by the first female chief executive of an American auto manufacturer. (Karni, 3/30)