Rivian spinoff Mind Robotics hires former Ford EV chief Doug Field

What happened

Rivian spinoff Mind Robotics announced the appointment of Doug Field as president in a major coup for the EV company's secretive robotics startup. Field also worked on Apple's secretive car project and oversaw development of the Tesla Model 3. Apple is a software and consumer electronics company based in Cupertino. Tesla is an automotive and solar company based in Palo Alto.

Field was a VP of special projects at Apple, where he was the de facto head of the company's ultimately unsuccessful Project Titan effort to make an autonomous electric car. He had a previous stint at Apple as VP of Mac hardware engineering, but he left the company in 2013 to become Tesla's chief vehicle engineer, where he helped oversee the Model 3 sedan . He left Tesla in 2018 and rejoined Apple .

Key facts

• Rivian spinoff Mind Robotics — announced: the appointment of Doug Field as president in a major coup for the EV company's secretive robotics startup