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Transportation Businesses Apple

Ford Hires Away Executive Leading Apple's Car Project (bloomberg.com) 53

Posted by BeauHD from the watershed-moment dept.
Ford is hiring the head of Apple's car project away from the iPhone maker, a stunning development that brings the 118-year-old automaker an executive with Silicon Valley chops. Bloomberg reports: Doug Field is coming aboard as chief advanced technology and embedded systems officer, Ford said in a statement. Field also previously worked as a top engineer at Tesla between two stints at Apple -- most recently as a vice president in its special projects group -- and played a major role at Tesla launching the Model 3 sedan. The hire is a coup for Ford, which has made major strides under Chief Executive Officer Jim Farley in convincing investors it can compete with Tesla and others on electric vehicles and technology. Ford shares have almost doubled since Farley took over in October, after his two predecessors presided over a years-long slump.

"This is a watershed moment for our company -- Doug has accomplished so much," Farley said in a briefing with reporters. "This is just a monumental moment in time that we have now to really remake" the automaker. Apple said it's grateful for the contributions Field made and that it wishes him well at Ford. The departure marks another significant setback for Apple's automotive efforts. The company's car project has gone through several strategy and leadership shake-ups since it started to take shape around 2014.
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Ford Hires Away Executive Leading Apple's Car Project More

Ford Hires Away Executive Leading Apple's Car Project

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  • Just what everyone needs more tech in cars to justify the increasing costs. I sometimes wonder if cars have to much tech in them now.
    • I have a 2020 ford ranger, and yea it is OK, but it is just too much, for me anyway.
      • That tech has lead to incredible car safety and reliability. Also, this signals to me that Apple was never serious about the project. If this was a Jobsian mega-project to fundamentally change the paradigm in the automotive industry, the project personnel would be hunkered down with the A-team toiling 90 hours a week to change the world, knowing their signatures would be immortalized on the inside of their breakthrough creation. Instead, they are vying for better compensation packages and leave half-baked p

    • Re:Great? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fermion ( 181285 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2021 @07:08PM (#61773745) Homepage Journal
      This is a myth. Car prices has not kept up with inflation. My first Honda Cvcc which was just a lawnmower engine wrapped in some thing bits of sheet metal was well over $20,000 in todayâ(TM)s money. There are a lot of better cars you can get for under that with lots more horse and computational power.

      • Re:Great? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2021 @07:15PM (#61773755)

        Indeed. Cars are not only better and more affordable than in the past, they are also much safer.

        Much of that safely is because of semiconductors in ABS brakes, airbag MEMS, adaptive cruise control, etc.

        Motor vehicle fatality rate in US by year [wikipedia.org]

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          Indeed. Cars are not only better and more affordable than in the past, they are also much safer.

          Much of that safely is because of semiconductors in ABS brakes, airbag MEMS, adaptive cruise control, etc.

          And ECUs making them require very little maintenance other than oil changes and other fluid changes.

          It's why people don't want a mechanical car - there's just so much you lose including being able to just hop in and go.

          Ignition coils, spark plugs, distributors, carburetors, and even tune ups are gone since th

          • You still have to change the coil packs from time to time. You will know when its time, you will get a check engine light. When you pull the code its going to show random misfire on a specific cylinder or random misfires across the entire engine. Just dont cheap out on the coil pack. I learned the hard way that getting anything other than OEM on them only makes you have to repeat the whole thing in a few months. Then I discovered FCP Euro could get me OEM brands for not much more than the cheaper brands sol
          • ECU? ever have one of those Electronic Modules go bad (I have) in an older car. Can't get them and if you can the cost is $$$. The electronics in current cars will make most of them junk while they still could run.
            Oh yea and little info on these proprietary modules, few/no? 3rd party open choices these are designed to force built in obsolesce to drive new car purchases.

            The more electronics in products like cars the sooner they will be junk.

            • This varies a whole lot. I had a register list for the computer in one of my cars. In others the PCM is passcoded and you can't tamper with it without going to heroic measures usually involving desoldering big fat quad ICs.

              However, in many cases you can throw away those modules and slap in a megasquirt.

        • People always talk about the mileage of the old Honda CRX hf model, asking why if they could do it then, why cant they now? I have to point out just how lightweight that car was. You could push start it on one leg. When you start rolling in 6 air bags, passenger airbag inflation sensors, ALB, backup cameras, and a whole host of other safety features, it adds enough weight that getting nearly 50mpg out of a simple ICE becomes difficult.
      • I think you are incorrect in suggesting that cars cost less today than they did in the past - even if your number is correct (and I am not sure, don't know what year Civic you are referring to). In any case, I'd argue that inflation is a flawed measure to use to estimate affordability. Here is my reasoning.

        Let's take the year 1977, its about as far back as I can triangulate my multiple data sources; Mean total compensation for worker that year was $10,043.15 (per the IRS, source [ssa.gov]). Cost of a new Chevy Imp

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by PoiBoy ( 525770 )
          The problem with your comparison is that you don't take into account the technological improvements in automobiles over time. A car with the same safety features, level of engine sophistication, and comfort as was available in 1977 would be cheap to make nowadays, if there were demand for it and it was exempt from safety regulations,
          • I could not agree with you more. This is what I meant by the entire last paragraph of my comment. I still maintain the comparison is relevant because both the 1977 and 2019 cars are transportation. In any case, it remains incorrect to say cars (=transportation) are cheaper today than in the past, as claimed by parent and others.

    • Actually the Tech is a way to reduce cost.

      Compare a 1980 Pickup Truck, with say a modern EV. You have mechanical parts with thousands of moving parts ready to break down, which many may just be doing things like timing, and creating a mesh of wiring that is difficult to fix, as well pipes, vents, gears, and shafts that need to engineered to precision, that undoubtedly fail due to the elements. Compared to an EV, which the Batteries are the component making them very expensive, but the extra tech on board t

  • Apple can get him back (Score:5, Funny)

    by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2021 @06:51PM (#61773717)

    Apple can get him back by using some petty cash to acquire Ford.

    Ford's market cap: $51B.

    Apple's current cash pile: $195B.

    Apple's market cap: $2.6T.

    • Ford famously has two classes of stock that actually make this an impossibility, unless, of course, the Ford family decide to sell their class B common stock.

      That should be enough information to Google in order to figure out what the heck I'm talking about.

      • Re:Apple can get him back (Score:4, Insightful)

        by JenovaSynthesis ( 528503 ) on Wednesday September 08, 2021 @08:17AM (#61775093)

        Well considering Ford does not even make cars anymore, sans the Mustang, that stock may tank. They killed off the Fusion, Focus, and Taurus (again). That's why I took the opportunity to look at other makers now since my 500 (aka Taurus) got totaled back in June. They pretty much lost my family as customers as my brother and I liked Taurus and my mother has always been fond of the Focus. She has zero interest in an SUV which is the basket Ford put all its eggs into.

        • All their eggs are in trucks and fleets. Suvs are just a thing to them. Car sales are declining, it is a dying breed relative to everything else. I liked the fusion, but like most people I prefer a wagon for the cargo space, er I mean SUV.

        • Ford cut their Car Brand market, so they can put attention of Electric Cars. At least it was their public statement. However I think it was mostly to cut American Production, and offshore to Mexico for their EVs, where they are not under the eyes of the UAW.

          When Biden had a big press event last month, about Electric Cars, people noticed that Tesla Wasn't present, nor was the Ford Mustang Mach-E which which was built in Mexico with non-Unioned workers. While Tesla has more parts made in America than any othe

        • Most people are buying CUVs now. Ford has no interest in producing small-volume cars unless people will pay a lot for them. Only luxury car buyers will pay that much for sedans, only sports car buyers will pay a lot for coupes, etc.

          Ford doesn't care about me either, because I'm a used buyer, and also irrelevant to their bottom line. I buy parts occasionally though, and those help keep dealerships alive, so that's something to them I guess.

    • Unless he doesn't want to work for Apple.
      The Apple Car project he may had found out is a dead end job. As Apple may not be so interested in making a car, so his power and influence in the company is limited, and just is kinda working on a busy project, that sometimes gets some marketing hype.
      Working at Ford, he would realize that his efforts will actually go into making a Car that goes and works.

  • Poor cultural match? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mamba-mamba ( 445365 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2021 @07:09PM (#61773747)

    I wonder if there is any chance that he will be ineffective at Ford due to culture mismatch? I am guessing he will leave in less than 2 years after getting frustrated and not accomplishing all that much.

    • Re:Poor cultural match? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by LatencyKills ( 1213908 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2021 @08:28PM (#61773901)

      A friend of mine left [BIG DEFENSE CONTRACTOR] to go to Apple, and found the engineering process there more burdensome than at his last job. I think Apple's hype as some kind of engineering Mecca is in the distant past.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        A friend of mine left [BIG DEFENSE CONTRACTOR] to go to Apple, and found the engineering process there more burdensome than at his last job. I think Apple's hype as some kind of engineering Mecca is in the distant past.

        It never was an engineering mecca, it was always a cult except the Messiah has long since disappeared. So all you have left is the burden of being in a cult.

        If this guy actually wants to make something, he's probably going to fit in much better at Ford than Apple.

      • Companies like Apple and Google, often attract the wrong sort of engineers, the ones that get interested in the fancy offices with colors, beanbag chairs and gourmet meals. But their actual jobs kinda sucks, while the job at a place that may be just a bunch of cinder-blocks, with a haphazard steel desk from the 1960's, may actually be far more ahead with technology and mehods, with engineers who want to engineer and not be treated like a frat boy, and can get more work done in an 8 hour shift, than these g

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jeremi ( 14640 )

      I wonder if there is any chance that he will be ineffective at Ford due to culture mismatch?

      I'm sure he will be as effective at Ford as he was at Apple... now I'm off to market in my self-driving iCar, ciao!

    • You also have to wonder how he can possibly compare to the levels of heroism he's being touted as having. I mean, the guy might be exceptional, but he's just a guy. If you arrive into too much razzmatazz, the chances are you can only disappoint everyone because they had such high expectations.

      Coming into a "watershed moment", "Doug has accomplished so much" and "This is just a monumental moment in time" are pretty big shoes to fill. No disrespect to the guy, but I wonder how much he accomplished, or how muc

  • I hope the Ford EVs have sufficiently numbered rounded corners to quickly squash the law suite.
    LoB

    • That is why thy have that useless dial on the touch pad. It makes sure it doesn't look like a big iPad in the middle of the car.

  • they are great at refining and marketing existing product, not so great with creating a new product.
    • Those are two entirely different things. Think about it: iPhone; iPad; iPodâ" Apple is incredible at creating new, industry changing products. Where they falter is v1 user testing for those products. Itâ(TM)s a difficult problem because the products arenâ(TM)t in a class of things familiar enough to testers to judge them by comparison, and they need to be relatively secretive about the tests to reduce industrial espionage, so test deployments canâ(TM)t be huge. After itâ(TM)s relea
  • In future the battery will be glued in, and you'll need a spudger to open the bonnet (hood).

    • Given the relative cost, and projected lifetime, of the battery and rest of the car (as of 2021) that may not be as silly as it sounds.

    • They won't include wheels since you can just use the ones you already have from your previous car. No point in creating more waste for the environment. Same for the home charger.

    • Why don't they just use the Bonnet area to store stuff. Like a lot of Electric Car companies do now.

  • Funny how stock prices are unrelated to actual sales and forecast revenue. Although GM is having a bad trot, may have advantage to any survivor. Tesla made it first to market, and break-evenish, and discovering defects early. Other carmakers are also on the me-too track. Except Toyota and Honda say hybrid is better, and cooking up rotary engines again, pointing out Japan has no spare electricity to power a battery fleet. I daresay they will make export versions. We hope models will be made with different si

    • Ford Mach-E is a decent first attempt, with corrected a lot of the Mistakes that Tesla Made with its first few models. Granted Engineering and Technology Wise, Tesla now still has an edge, however the Mach-E is good enough to be a real competitor to Tesla.

      However what you might be seeing is our market getting flooded with Good Chinese Cars. Don't let your national pride get in the way the fact that the Chinese are getting good at making cars, and are not cheap crap, that we hope they would be. This may be

  • A massive corporation thinks it can just append the latest thing to its core business, but it ends up with little actual support inside the company and eventually the program becomes chaotic and loses people. Ford's core business is making cars. It isn't Apple's.

  • It's the supply chain, duh. (Score:3)

    by TomGreenhaw ( 929233 ) on Wednesday September 08, 2021 @09:56AM (#61775437)
    The winners in the transition of auto technology will be those who can build enough of the cars people want.

    The capability of engineering cars that the public will buy exists at many auto companies. The ability to transform their supply chains has yet to be resolved. This is why Tesla is doing as well as they are - they are not burdened with an antiquated supply chain and make their own batteries. Existing companies haven't solved that problem yet. Look at GM, the Bolt and the LG batteries; when you rely on so many companies to make your product one is certain to let you down.

    Luring away talent isn't the game changer the big auto makers need.

  • Does this matter because the executive is particularly effective at leading a team/division to build an electric car, or does it matter because the successful hiring of the executive signals that Ford's electric car prospects are on the rise?

    I often see these stories about big executives moving from one company to another but I'm never sure if the actual significance is being overblown or if these moves really are as critical as reporters seem to imply.

    • The significance is that Doug Ford milked Apple for all it was worth, and now he is switching to extracting cash from another sucker.

  • Classic Detroit strategy. Hire away a critical R&D or Executive for a next-generation product that isn't making any money much less have a proof of concept.

    The out GMed GM this time.

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