Apple hits bump on path to self-driving vehicles

The abrupt departure of Apple Inc.’s top automotive executive imperils its efforts to develop a self-driving car, a project that’s been seen as one of the tech giant’s biggest bets.

Doug Field, a Tesla Inc. veteran who joined Apple in 2018 to head up its car project, left Tuesday to become Ford Motor Co.’s chief advanced technology officer. Field’s exit calls into question the progress Apple has made toward developing the technology and experience needed to compete in the auto industry. It’s just the latest upheaval for the division: Field is the fourth executive leading the Apple car project to step away in its seven-year history.

Not that developing self-driving cars has been easy for anyone else. Tesla, the market leader in electric vehicles, is still probably years away from offering fully autonomous cars. Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo has suffered a rash of departures in its efforts to develop the technology. And Uber Technologies Inc. agreed to sell off its autonomous-driving division last year.

Apple’s car efforts have always been a bit of a paradox — it’s a hotly anticipated product that the company says almost nothing about. Field’s official title at Apple was vice president of special projects, belying the significance of his role. But he was entrusted with developing one of the company’s “next big things,” a product that could keep sales growing the way the iphone, ipad and Apple Watch did in the past decade.

Apple kicked off plans to develop a self-driving electric car around 2014. Filings with the California Department of Motor Vehicles indicated that its testing on public roads in 2020 lagged the year prior and that the reliability of its technology is still not approaching competitors like General Motors Co.’s Cruise and Waymo.