Former Ford EV chief Doug Field becomes president of Rivian robotics firm Mind Robotics
The former Tesla and Apple executive will run day-to-day operations at the Rivian spinoff. Mind Robotics builds AI-driven industrial robots and has raised more than a billion dollars.
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Doug Field, who led Ford's electric vehicle and technology strategy until April, is becoming president of Mind Robotics. The company, spun out of electric carmaker Rivian about a year ago, develops industrial robots controlled by AI foundation models. Field will oversee day-to-day operations including product, engineering and operations; Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe remains involved. The move was announced on Tuesday at the Disrupt tech conference in San Francisco.
Field previously led Apple's since-cancelled car project "Titan" and, as head of engineering at Tesla, oversaw the Model 3. "Integrating AI and robotics is one of the most important – and difficult – engineering challenges of our time," he said.
According to TechCrunch, Mind Robotics has raised more than a billion dollars from investors including Accel, Andreessen Horowitz, Eclipse and Kleiner Perkins as well as the venture arms of Volkswagen and Salesforce. Its first customer and training environment are Rivian's plants, and Rivian holds about a third of the shares. Unlike Tesla, the company does not intend to copy all of human biomechanics.