A senior executive who led Ford Motor’s push into electric vehicles and software will leave the company next month, Ford said on Wednesday.
The executive, Doug Field, joined the automaker in 2021 after serving in top jobs at Apple and Tesla. At Ford, he worked on electric vehicles that the company said would be affordable and technologically sophisticated enough to compete with Chinese models that dominate the market for such cars in most of the world.
His departure was unexpected and could force Ford to again rejigger its faltering electric vehicle operation, which has racked up billions of dollars in losses. Last year, the company said it would cancel some models and write off around $20 billion in investments in the technology.
In recent months, Mr. Field often spoke publicly about the technical progress that Ford was making. He created and led a small engineering group in California that developed components for a new family of electric cars and trucks. The first of those vehicles, a pickup truck, is expected to go on sale next year at a starting price around $30,000.
Mr. Field did not give a specific reason for his departure or say precisely what he plans to do next. In a conference call with reporters on Wednesday, he said he had learned a great deal in his career and now wanted to “find the best ways to share that with as many people as possible.”
Before Ford, Mr. Field worked on Apple’s secretive project to build a self-driving electric car. He also held senior roles at Tesla when it was trying to establish itself as a viable automaker. Mr. Field started his career as an engineer at Ford decades earlier.
Ford also said on Wednesday that it had formed a new group to develop vehicles. It includes professionals from various parts of the company, including engineering, manufacturing, design and software.
“This structure positions us to move a lot faster, reduce complexity inside the company and enable us to deliver great digital experiences and vehicles with quality and efficiency,” Ford’s chief executive, Jim Farley, said on a conference call.
The new organization will be led by Kumar Galhotra, the company’s chief operating officer. “This creates an end-to-end team with accountability for the entire product creation process,” Mr. Golhotra said.
In response to a question, Mr. Farley said the United States should not allow Chinese electric vehicles to be sold in the country, at least until American automakers could successfully compete against them.
Chinese automakers produce electric vehicles at substantially lower cost and with more advanced battery technology. Some, such as BYD, have quickly gained market share in Europe, Southeast Asia and Latin America.
While very high tariffs effectively bar Chinese electric cars from the United States, President Trump has mused about allowing them in if companies agree to establish U.S. factories. Many American auto executives have pushed back against that idea because they fear that Chinese manufacturers would quickly capture a big chunk of the U.S. market.
“They’re really leading the world in many ways,” Mr. Farley said. “The reality is, if you’re an automaker today and you don’t become fit, you’re not going to be around much longer.”
Mr. Farley also said that, in his view, the United States and other countries had opened their markets to foreign companies too quickly in the past and then had seen their domestic industries shrink because of intense competition.
“The stakes are so high,” he said. “The auto industry is really our last, great stronghold and industrial base. It matters for our economy, and our country.”
Source:
www.nytimes.com
