The name Doug Field has been prominent in the EV world for quite some time. He was a top executive at Tesla for five years, after working at Apple for five years. In August 2018, he then went back to Apple for three years to lead Project Titan, the company’s effort to develop an autonomous vehicle. After that project led to nothing, Doug moved to Ford to lead their EV program in September 2021 and help make Ford into more of a software-driven automaker. Well, we know where that has led. Ford has engaged in a massive pullback, canceling and writing off billions of dollars of EV investments. The Ford F-150 Lightning, the company’s electric truck, is also being pulled from the market. Frankly, the Ford EV program is in critical condition. Unsurprisingly, the news this week is that Doug Field has left Ford. The announcement was made on Wednesday. Did Doug fail Ford, or did Ford fail Doug? I don’t know, and it could be a little bit of both, but what is clear is that Ford is not an EV leader in the US or elsewhere at this point. Its EV sales are minimal while some competitors are doing considerably better. Despite leading on electric pickups with the Ford F-150 Lightning, it’s now pulling that model from the market. There’s still been hype about the company working on Universal Electric Vehicle (UEV) platform, and perhaps that was really Doug’s primary Ford project, but now he’s gone and the company is not close to launching a UEV platform vehicle. There is still a former Tesla executive on the team, though. Alan Clarke has reportedly led the skunkworks program that led to the UEV, and he is now vice president of Advanced Development Projects. “Field was a visible figure at Ford whom Farley often praised on the company’s earnings calls. He was among the key leaders when the automaker split its business into three units: the EV and digital services division, the traditional internal combustion engine business, and the commercial vehicles unit. And he was behind Ford’s skunkworks program — a secretive internal team — to build a low-cost electric vehicle,” Tech Crunch notes. However, Field is leaving and Clarke is staying. Perhaps it’s about cutting costs. Who knows? So, we are seeing more twists and turns in the industry, and Ford’s path forward is anything but clear. Does it have a promising program underway, or is it still in basic, early stages of development? As far as Doug Field goes, perhaps it’s time to truly retire? Or is he going to pop up at another company leading another new EV program in a few months? Who knows? Clearly, he was part of a very successful Tesla team early on, before leaving in August 2018 right as Model 3 production was finally able to ramp up and the company started making a profit. (Odd timing, to be honest.) Apple’s Project Titan was a failure, unless you count spending billions of dollars on an autonomous vehicle project and then not launching a vehicle a success. What he achieved at Ford, I don’t know. Just to be clear, I’m not trying to imply anything. It’s just not clear what he’s achieved and what he hasn’t, or what the various reasons were for those failures and successes. We’ll see what the future holds, for Ford and for Doug Field.
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