Rivian spinoff Mind Robotics announced the project of Doug Field as chairman in a important coup for the EV company’s secretive robotics startup.
Field was a VP of particular projects at Apple, anywhere he was the de facto caput of the company’s ultimately unsuccessful Project Titan attempt to create an autonomous electric car. He had a former stint at Apple as VP of Mac hardware engineering, but he remaining the business in 2013 to rotate into Tesla’s chief conveyance engineer, anywhere he helped oversee the Model 3 sedan. He remaining Tesla in 2018 and rejoined Apple. In 2021, Field was hired by Ford to run the automaker’s electric conveyance and application division, a stance he held until before this year.
Mind Robotics stated Field volition oversee its attempt to build “universally capable robots” for the intent of operating in Rivian’s factories, as fine as another applications. The startup was founded by Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe in 2025, and has since raised over $1 milliard in financing. While the business has yet to display off any of its robots in public, the startup says its robots are being designed alongside “dexterity and bodily reasoning” that’s required for manufacturing work.
“Doug is a notable chief alongside a track document of delivering new technologies in prosperous products, and I couldn’t be additional enthusiastic to be construction Mind alongside him,” Scaringe stated in a statement. “He has an amazing capability to foster awesome teams that obtain on big, complex ideas and provision products that reset expectations. That’s exactly what Mind needs as we deploy robots into genuine factories and beyond.”
Field joins Mind Robotics at a important turning item for the site of robotics, alongside fast advances in bodily AI colliding alongside important hurdles in hardware and application development. Several companies, akin Tesla and Hyundai, are following humanoid robots for factory and storage activity — equal as experts note that making a robot act akin a individual is easier than scaling the innovation for applicable work. Mind Robotics hasn’t confirmed whether it’s operating on a humanoid scheme or item alternatively entirely. The business has been on a hiring spree and currently has 32 open positions.
Scaringe, who serves as acting CEO and place of Mind Robotics, has stated he wants to keep the companies separate, fairly than try to merge the activity akin Tesla. That said, the companies are certainly connected in multiple ways. Mind Robotics is using AI training data from Rivian, and the robots volition be initially tested in Rivian’s factories. Rivian additionally owns equity in Mind Robotics and volition be the archetypal client for its robots.
Field stated he is enthusiastic for the difficulty in operating the new startup.
“Integrating AI and robotics is among the most important—and difficult—engineering challenges of our time,” he stated in a statement. “Mind has assembled an exceptional squad and has a distinctive advantage: the capability to deploy and study inner a real, high-volume factory from day one. I’m thrilled to associate RJ in construction a team, culture, and innovation that volition redefine what we can create in America.”
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