Apple Car Head Moves to Ford... "Ford's Coup"

Doug Field (Photo by AP News)

[Asia Economy Reporter Yujin Cho] Ford Motor Company, which has declared its transition to a fully electric vehicle company, has recruited Doug Field, the former vice president who oversaw the Apple Car project.

According to Bloomberg on the 7th (local time), Ford announced in a statement that it appointed Field, who led the Apple Car project, as the executive in charge of advanced technology and embedded systems. Field is expected to lead vehicle software development and connected car strategy at Ford.

Field began his engineering career at Ford, then worked at Tesla before joining Apple in 2018, where he led the 'Titan Project' developing the autonomous electric Apple Car. As Tesla’s senior vice president of engineering, he also played a major role in the launch of the Model 3.

Bloomberg described Ford’s recruitment of Field as a 'coup.' Bloomberg evaluated it as "a coup that instills confidence under the leadership of Ford CEO Jim Farley that the company can compete with innovative firms like Tesla in electric vehicle and autonomous driving technology." Bloomberg added, "This signifies a major setback for Apple’s ongoing Apple Car project."

The Apple Car, secretly developed under the name Titan Project since 2014, has faced a turbulent development process with changes in project leadership and multiple strategic and personnel reorganizations.

This recruitment marks a significant advancement for Ford, which has declared itself a challenger to Tesla in the electric vehicle sector. Ford recently began offering autonomous driving systems as paid options on electric vehicles such as the Mustang Mach-E and F-150, pursuing a business model that continuously updates vehicle functions like a smartphone to generate revenue.

CEO Farley said, "The current automobile market is like the mobile phone market when the iPhone was first introduced," adding, "Just as customers realized they could do much more than voice calls on their phones, they now want more features in their cars." He continued, "This is a monumental moment to reinvent a 118-year-old company."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.