Former Ford EV Chief Doug Field Named Mind Robotics President — SkimNews
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- Doug Field was named president of Mind Robotics, joining after earlier this year departing as Ford's EV and software chief, a role he held since 2021.
- Field brings a career spanning Apple (Project Titan, Mac hardware), Tesla (Model 3 chief vehicle engineer), and Ford, with Mind CEO RJ Scaringe calling him a leader who "resets expectations."
- Mind Robotics will deploy "universally capable robots" with "dexterity and physical reasoning" into Rivian's factories first, though the company has not disclosed whether the design is humanoid.
- Founded by Scaringe in 2025, Mind Robotics has raised over $1 billion, has 32 open positions, and uses Rivian's AI training data for development.
- A correction in the article clarifies Mind Robotics is a partner of Rivian — not a spinoff — with Rivian holding equity and acting as the first customer, though Scaringe serves as acting CEO and chair and wants the firms kept separate.
Why it matters: Mind Robotics lands a veteran who shipped the Model 3 and ran Ford's EV pivot at a moment when Tesla, Hyundai, and others are racing to put humanoid robots on factory floors. The Rivian equity stake and built-in factory deployment give Mind a captive testbed its competitors must build from scratch — and the $1B already raised shows investors are willing to fund that bet before any robot ships.
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