COVID-19: Honda and GM join hands to make hand sanitiser

The spread of COVID-19 pandemic saw most of the major automotive brands contribute to the fight by diverting their resources to manufacturing personal protection equipment (PPE) for healthcare worksers and for the wider community. Now, Honda and General Motors (GM) have joined hands to produce nearly 12,000 gallons of hand sanitiser through their Fuel Cell System Manufacturing (FCSM) partnership.

The hand sanitiser produced as part of the partnership will be used by both companies at their facilities throughout the region. Honda is even donating 3,750 bottles to health care facilities in Ohio and Michigan this week.

The hand sanitiser is being made at the Brownstown, Michigan facility where the FCSM team has been working on the development of fuel-cell fuel stacks for the next generation of hydrogen-powered cars. The team apparently developed a process to re-purpose the equipment designed to manufacture electrodes used in fuel cells, to produce the hand sanitizer.

Honda will donate nearly 75 percent of its allocation of the hand sanitizer, packaging the product in easy-to-use nine-ounce bottles for health care facilities.

Packaging Corporation of America donated the packaging needed to ship the product, and the FCSM team worked with other companies to handle the bottling.

Honda Engineering North America is already manufacturing and distributing personal protection equipment for frontline healthcare professionals. Honda engineers developed new methods to use existing manufacturing equipment to produce critically needed face shields and have donated thousands of face shields to healthcare workers across the US.

Honda’s partner GM has also been proactively aiding the global fight against the pandemic. In partnership with Ventec Life Systems, GM produced VOCSN critical care ventilators in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Photo shows an employee building ventilators at the General Motors manufacturing facility in Kokomo, Indiana.