Field will be responsible for driving development of new vehicles, CNBC adds.
Field worked under Dan Riccio (and previously Bob Mansfield) on computers like the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and iMac. Before Apple, Field was the Chief Technology Officer at Segway.
Field has had a longtime interest in creating alternative vehicles. Apple Insider quotes him as saying:
"Until Tesla came along, I had never seriously considered leaving Apple," said Field. "I started my career with the goal of creating incredible cars, but ultimately left the auto industry in search of fast-paced, exciting engineering challenges elsewhere.
"As the first high tech auto company in modern history, Tesla is at last an opportunity for me and many others to pursue the dream of building the best cars in the world-while being part of one of the most innovative companies in Silicon Valley."
He also did a stint at Ford.
Apple hired a second Segway developer, John Morrell of Yale University, for a "moonshot" project in 2012, Bloomberg reports.
It's not clear what kind of "moonshot" they were working on.