Ford hires former Apple executive in push for electric cars

New York

FORD Motor said on Tuesday that it had hired the senior executive who was leading Apple's secretive car project to help the carmaker push further into electric vehicles.

The executive, Doug Field, will be responsible for turning Ford vehicles into software-driven products that can interact with customers and provide new types of services, something Ford and other car companies say will become more important. Mr Field's title will be chief advanced technology and embedded systems officer, and he will report to CEO Jim Farley.

At Apple, Mr Field, 56, held the title of vice-president of special projects and played an important role in a years-long effort to develop an electric vehicle. His departure could be a blow to Apple's auto ambitions, which have been a subject of intense speculation.

Before working at Apple, Mr Field was vice-president of engineering at Tesla, where he led the development of the company's Model 3 car, its most affordable vehicle. Early in his career, Mr Field worked for several years as an engineer at Ford.

The hiring is something of a coup for Ford, which like other traditional automakers has lost executives and engineers to startups and tech companies. In a sign of how important Ford considers Mr Field's return, the company held a conference call for journalists with Mr Field and Mr Farley on Tuesday.

"I think the auto industry is in a period of profound change," Mr Field said on the call. "Electrification, software and connected vehicles and autonomy are going to change everything. Too often these new technologies are brought forward by startups." At Ford, he added, he saw "a deep desire to really change and embrace these technologies". Mr Farley said Ford planned to build a team of executives around Mr Field.

"We will compete for talent," Mr Farley said. "We aren't done."

Mr Field, a graduate of Purdue University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, worked at Ford from 1987 to 1993. He also spent nine years at Segway, the maker of the stand-up scooter, and five years in hardware engineering at Apple before joining Tesla in 2013. He left Tesla in 2018 as the company struggled to mass produce the Model 3, rejoining Apple.

Asked on the call if his most recent departure from Apple signalled the end of the tech company's plans to develop a car, Mr Field declined to comment.

Ford has already started selling electric vehicles. Its Mustang Mach-E sport utility vehicle has sold well, and the company has taken tens of thousands of reservations for an electric version of its F-150 pickup truck, which will go on sale next year. Ford expects that 40 per cent of the vehicles it makes will be electric by 2030.

But Ford and other traditional carmakers have not yet gone as far as Tesla in turning cars and trucks into software-based products that can be improved and modified with over-the-air updates the way smartphones can.

"What I'm so excited about is doing that with a company like Ford with this level of history and scale," Mr Field said, adding that Mr Farley and Ford executive chair Bill Ford are "100 per cent committed to figuring this out". NYTIMES