Recently, Tesla Motors appointed Doug Field as a Vice President to lead development of new vehicles. Their press release presented him as an employee of Apple Computers, having led development of their computers. This makes us think of him as a consumer electronics guy, and this points to Tesla’s product line as being like a consumer electronics device on wheels, that can go from 0-60 mph in under 5 seconds, and costs close to $100,000.
Tesla’s press release also describes his vehicle development experience very briefly, mentioning stints at Segway and Ford Motors. Without knowing about his history we might, as I did, skip right past that thinking “oh, that’s nice”.
However, the Facebook posting linked below shows we should stop and think about this. Doug Field was employee #1 of Segway. This is more significant than if he had been employee #173 or something, right? Being employee #1 means he almost certainly was deeply involved with development of the Segway Transporter. Was he involved with the over-the-top expectations-setting that Segway made?
In any case – does this mean Tesla Motors is going to take a look at developing electric scooters? I rather doubt it. Tesla has stayed focused on developing electric cars, and that task by itself is daunting enough to develop a mass market product. Electric scooters are a whole other ball-o-wax in terms of gaining acceptance in America.
What’s most likely is that he’ll focus on developing the mass market affordable electric car, Tesla’s 3rd generation car. Developing that car and getting acceptance at the 200,000+ car per year sales volume is such a huge task that we want the best people to focus on its development.
While it’s enticing to wonder what Tesla Motors might develop for personal transportation, essentially their take on an electric scooter, but to develop such a product would be a distraction from this big task, right?
TESLA HIRES APPLE VP DOUG FIELD TO LEAD VEHICLE PROGRAMS
- Highway design could decrease death and injury risk, if “we” chose smarter designs - March 28, 2015
- GM really did trademark “range anxiety”, only later to abandon that mark - March 25, 2015
- US Government releases new regulations on hydraulic fracturing, that some call “toothless” - March 20, 2015
- Tesla Motors magic pill to solve range anxiety doesn’t quite instill range confidence - March 19, 2015
- Update on Galena IL oil train – 21 cars involved, which were the supposedly safer CP1232 design - March 7, 2015
- Another oil bomb train – why are they shipping crude oil by train? – Symptoms of fossil fuel addiction - March 6, 2015
- Chevron relinquishes fracking in Romania, as part of broader pull-out from Eastern European fracking operations - February 22, 2015
- Answer anti- electric car articles with truth and pride – truth outshines all distortions - February 19, 2015
- Apple taking big risk on developing a car? Please, Apple, don’t go there! - February 16, 2015
- Toyota, Nissan, Honda working on Japanese fuel cell infrastructure for Japanese government - February 12, 2015
