Rivian's robotics spinoff just hired the guy who helped Tesla ship the Model 3.
Mind Robotics, a robotics startup spun out of Rivian, has brought on Doug Field as its latest high-profile hire. Field most recently served as Ford's EV chief, running the automaker's electric vehicle division. Before that, he worked on Apple's secretive car project. Earlier still, he oversaw engineering on Tesla's Model 3, the car that proved Tesla could build at volume rather than just prototypes.
The hire fits a broader pattern: as humanoid and industrial robotics companies race to move past demo videos, they're recruiting automotive engineers who know how to take complex hardware from a one-off prototype to a factory line. That Rivian is spinning off a robotics unit at all says something about where EV makers think the next hardware opportunity sits.
Padded executive titles aside, Field already has a mass-market EV on the road with his fingerprints on it: the Model 3. Whether that production discipline carries over to robots is the part nobody can answer yet.