Robotics is one such field. I work with tons of PhDs, and self driving car companies hire them like crazy. In certain organizations, you need a PhD to advance as an Applied Scientist. A masters won't cut it.
But that’s my entire point. Taking your example, the bulk of robotics companies aren’t all applied scientists (for that matter in spacex, nasa, etc.). You will have a very small cohort that does the r&d and the rest of the folks executing on that.
The r&d space is really interesting but very selective for obvious reasons. Just a PhD won’t get you in. You will need significant other contributions - eg the right publications in high impact journals, possibly internship with the companies themselves, the right advisor/PI that collaborates with the company, etc.
The team I'm on is half PhDs. We aren't doing fundamental research, we are building a real product. We prefer to hire PhDs as applied scientists (which we distinguish from research scientist) because they are better able to apply and build new-ish ideas from academia. But most of what we do is not novel in the publishable sense. The PhDs I work with are certainly all smart, but aren't the top echelon you are describing.