Here’s What You Need To Know About Tom Zhu, Tesla’s New ‘Number 2’

Tom Zhu Tesla
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It’s the first working day of 2023 and Tesla’s got a new almost-boss, Rheinmetall’s got a new customer, Takata has a new recall, and diesel prices still kinda suck.

Welcome to The Morning Dump, bite-sized stories corralled into a single article for your morning perusal. If your morning coffee’s working a little too well, pull up a throne and have a gander at the best of the rest of yesterday.

Get To Know The Name Tom Zhu

Tesla is either killing it, or struggling hard, or fixing things, or in the best position ever, or in the worst position ever. It depends on the day and on whom you ask. Here are some headlines from the last week:

Whatever you think of Tesla’s cars, Elon Musk’s company is remarkably good at sucking up all the oxygen in a room. The company’s rise from a slightly obscure maker of electric Lotuses to the most valuable car company in the world took only about a decade and so we’re all a little obsessed.

Lately, though, Elon Musk seems a little preoccupied with his purchase of Twitter. Investors have complained about his lack of attention quite publicly. Musk’s solution? Here’s one more headline, from Reuters:

According to Reuters, this move will put Zhu in charge of everything other than design and development and make him the second most important executive at Tesla after Musk himself.

Tom Zhu has been promoted to take direct oversight of the electric carmaker’s U.S. assembly plants as well as sales operations in North America and Europe, according to an internal posting of reporting lines reviewed by Reuters.

The Tesla posting showed that Zhu’s title of vice president for Greater China had not changed and that he also retained his responsibilities as Tesla’s most senior executive for sales in the rest of Asia as of Tuesday.

So who is this guy?

Zhu, who was born in China but now holds a New Zealand passport, joined Tesla in 2014. Before that he was a project manager at a company established by his MBA classmates at Duke University, advising Chinese contractors working on infrastructure projects in Africa.

During Shanghai’s two-month COVID lockdown, Zhu was among the first batch of employees sleeping in the factory as they sought to keep it running, people who work with him have said.

Zhu, a no-fuss manager who sports a buzz cut, favors Tesla-branded fleece jackets and has lived in a government-subsidized apartment that is a 10-minute drive from the Shanghai Gigafactory. It was not immediately clear whether he would move after his promotion.

Sleeping at your place of work seems to be the way to Elon Musk’s heart.

Diesel Is Now A Little Cheaper, Still Not Cheap

Ram Ecodiesel

I took a very long road trip to Michigan and back over the holidays (it went much better than Jason/David/Otto’s trip because I stay in slightly nicer places) and I was pleased to see gas prices lower than they’ve been lately. I averaged around $3.20 for regular gas, with one place slightly below $3.

There’s always a temptation to buy another diesel vehicle and so I also glance over at the diesel pump to see what it might cost, and my sense was that prices were finally cooling down for the glow-pluggers out there.

This piece from the Detroit News confirms that prices are down. That’s the good news. The bad news is that diesel prices aren’t contracting as quickly as the price of other fuel. From the news site:

Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said the stubbornly high prices stem from several factors.

First, U.S. production of diesel is slim. Out of one barrel of crude oil, two-thirds becomes gasoline and one third becomes diesel, he said. So when oil refineries have production issues, diesel output is particularly affected.

Second, the war between Russia and the Ukraine has reduced the amount of oil transported from Russia to the U.S.

Add in new incentives for biodiesel, diesel being used for home heating, and reduced refining capacity and it’s not clear that costs are going to come down anytime soon.

Volkswagen Is Still Recalling Takata Airbags

Vw Dune Beetle

The Takata recalls aren’t done yet. Volkswagen is asking for owners of 2015 and 2016 model year Beetles to bring their vehicles in to avoid the same issue that’s been plaguing everyone else. Here’s what the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says:

Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. (Volkswagen) is recalling certain 2015-2016 Beetle and Beetle Convertibles vehicles. The driver’s side air bag inflator may explode due to propellant degradation occurring after long-term exposure to high absolute humidity, high temperatures, and high temperature cycling.

Remedy

Dealers will replace the driver’s side air bag, free of charge. Owner notification letters are expected to be mailed February 17, 2023. Owners may contact Volkswagen’s customer service at 1-800-893-5298. Volkswagen’s number for this recall is 69EM.

This is quite serious. If you have one of these vehicles get it fixed ASAP.

Who Bought 250 Million EUR Worth Of Parts From Rheinmetall?

Porsche Mission R

Here’s a fun press release from Rheinmetall, which is a German automotive supplier and arms manufacturer:

The high-tech enterprise Rheinmetall has won a major order worth over a quarter billion euros in the electromobility domain from a premium German automaker. Rheinmetall will be equipping the new 900-volt generation of electrically powered vehicles with a new type of contactor. Rheinmetall won the order in the face of stiff competition from Asia, establishing itself as a global market leader for contactors for this future voltage class.

Starting in 2025, Rheinmetall will supply tens of millions of these contactors for the automaker’s new vehicle platform. Rheinmetall is thus widening its lead in the new world of 900V technology, making the vehicles safer to operate.

A German company making parts for a German company isn’t huge news, but it’s interesting they don’t say who this is. Assuming it’s not Opel, that leaves Mercedes, the Volkswagen-Audi universe, or BMW.

Mercedes has the Vision EQXX, which uses a 900 Volt system. Porsche uses a similar system in their Mission R concept. I can’t think of a similar system from BMW. If I had to put money on it I’d say it’s Mercedes given that they’ve already announced new platforms for 2025.

The Flush

Would you buy a new/used diesel vehicle? If so, what would you get?

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Photos: YouTube, Volkswagen, Stellantis, Porsche

 

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48 thoughts on “Here’s What You Need To Know About Tom Zhu, Tesla’s New ‘Number 2’”

    1. Let me tell you about something that isn’t poop, though: the Porsche Cayenne Diesel.

      Diesel’s pricey now and there’s no shortage of takes on whether The Fix neutered it or not, so I think I’d rather get a gas-powered one if I can finally ever buy a Cayenne, but…still would.

  2. I’m pretty iffy about diesels mainly due to the fuel injection systems (don’t Google image search hydraulic injection surgery) and the possibility of runaway.

    So no. All the more power to the people who do want to buy one though.

    1. More concerning these days is buildup in the EGR systems and the DEF system failing, getting stolen like a cat or the regen cycle negating the fuel economy gains. I would like to have a Diesel truck to pull a car hauler once in a while, but with Midwest weather potentially causing gelling issues, and the things mentioned above, it would be hard for me to choose a decent Diesel to buy.

  3. I would absolutely love another merc 300sd! Other than that I was really wanting a diesel 4×4 toyota hiace to supplement my rhd xj on my mail route but fearing that diesel prices will probably never be sane again I’m probably just going to buy another rhd xj. Easier to swap parts back and forth anyhow.

    1. My first Mercedes was a 300SD bought for $500 to run on used vegetable oil and I still kinda miss it. It ate highway miles like a champ, and was -surprisingly- a beast in the snow. I loved the looks on peoples faces when I’d hang that huge rearend out throwing rooster-tails.

      Absolute tanks, too: when harvesting from my parts car, my buddy flipped it over with a tractor (to avoid jackstands on dirt) and not a window even cracked. The doors opened & shut with the same sound as upright. You can disassemble & rebuild just about every part on them: they were built with loooong service in mind.

  6. my daily is a ’13 vw jetta long roof. when bought in ’18, i drove 110 miles a day, virtually all highway. the 35+/- mpg was/ is nice. it’s paid for now but post-covid, i’m down to 2 or 3 trips to the office, no longer doing 25k miles a year. with diesel prices what they are, mandatory timing belt changes, and currently being in the shop for the dpf light, i’ve decided i’m pleased with my diesel experiment, love that it’s able to fit 8′ 4x4s, tons of landscaping pavers, etc., and also that i’ll not do diesel again, not even for the truck that’s probably the next vehicle. i’m conceding to the effing huge vehicles sharing the roads and joining that club, mostly because i’m over staring directly into headlights.

  8. I wouldn’t buy a new diesel vehicle becsuse of all of the electronics and urea tank and all of the expensive/inconvenient problems that these things can entail, but hell yes I’d buy an old used one, and have done so before. I used to own a Mercedes-Benz 300 SDL, and would would gladly own another. That car was the smoothest thing I had ever driven at high speeds and could soak up 120 mph cruising for hours on end, in comfort, and took near constant abuse with over 250k on the odometer without fail.

    However, if I were to buy another diesel vehicle, it would likely be to swap the engine into something else.

    Here’s a video of a Datsun 240Z that can exceed 40 mpg on the highway, and in this video its running a 12.3-second 1/4 mile with a 300 SD’s OM606 engine tuned to about 300 horses:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RghY0For0Q

    Except I have an even zanier idea. We all know the 240Z isn’t a very slippery car, nor is it the lightest car out there. Put an even stouter OM603 engine in a Triumph GT6 with aerodynamic modifications or a Triumph Spitfire with a custom body built over the chassis to cut drag, swap in some aftermarket parts to handle the extra power, and a roll cage to stiffen the chassis up. Dare I say that a sub 11-second car that can get 70+ mpg highway while keeping its weight well-balanced for cornering purposes is possible, and by keeping everything with minimal computers, would keep it relatively easy to work on and low cost to keep operational.

    Also, another build I am a fan of is this other diesel swapped 240Z:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T93pJN6nmBE

  9. A good chunk of my fleet is powered by diesel! Let’s see, four diesel VWs (two Jetta SportWagen TDIs, one Passat wagon TDI, one Touareg V10 TDI), one Smart Fortwo CDI, and the RTS bus, of course!

  10. Regarding Tom Zhu… I think he’s the guy who turned things around for Tesla in China. I recall that around 2012-2013, Tesla was not doing well in China at first and they fired the first guy (forgot who that was) they had running the operation.

    And I’m pretty sure Tom Zhu was the key person that turned things around which set the stage for other things that happened in China such as the very successful Gigafactory there that was initially intended only to supply the local market, but then was expanded to become an export hub.

  11. We love our TDI and would absolutely buy another. Diesel is 30% more energy dense than gasoline (by volume), so even at the current higher cost, it’s still competitive. As for the up front greater purchase price, well that was negated for us by the dieselgate $5k rebate and 0% financing. I still kick myself for not buying two!

  13. I daily a 6speed TDI Sportwagen now, and would happily do so again if it met an untimely fate.

    Beyond that, I’m open to most any options, but would particularly enjoy one of they grey market 300D wagons that slipped in with a stick shift in the 80s. Like turtle, if you’re going to be slow, you better be tough to kill.

    1. Your vehicle taste is exactly in line with mine. I have a 6spd Sportwagen TDI as well, but I’d love an old Benz wagon with a stick. A friend had a 1985 300D sedan back in high school, that damn thing was unkillable.

      Love my Sportwagen, I want to get it chipped once my powertrain warranty goes out. Diesel prices have got me trying out some hypermiling tips though!

      1. I hear you. The extent of my hypermiling is setting the cruise at 74 instead of 77 if we’re not in a hurry, but it’s been painful after years of gas and diesel being the same price around here.

        Granted, when the other options are my 14mpg truck and the wife’s surprisingly thirsty 25mpg Accord, the wagon still has the lowest fuel cost.

  14. I have a mixed relationship with diesels. Don’t really like the rattly 4 cylinder diesels.
    On the other hand, the 6 cylinders sound and feel much better.
    I like their driving characteristics a lot, especially when paired with an automatic. Smooth and lots of low end grunt, yet good fuel economy.
    I would love to buy a cheap E320 CDI with the OM648 but they are rare.
    The OM642 CDI’s are much more complicated and have more issues.
    I was also looking at V6 CRD WK2 Grand Cherokees and V6 TDI Touaregs but I got cold feet from all the modern emissions stuff that can and does break.
    So no diesels for me unless I can find one from the few model years where they were already reliable and powerful, but they haven’t had DPFs, AdBlue, sensors, intake swirls and all that fragile tech.

  15. Hustle culture is profoundly cursed. We as a society need to push back on this sort of SUPER HARDCORE or whatever Lord Elon calls it workplace culture. If work is the only focus in your life I honestly feel bad for you. No one should be sleeping at their damn offices.

    While Tesla and other techbro companies are some of the worst culprits of this overworking is still very much the norm across the country. Hell, I work in the mental health field of all things and I don’t think I’ve ever held a job where I averaged only 40 hours a week…I had multiple jobs where I only got 5 days of vacation annually, and when I reported being overcome by stress to any of my previous supervisors I was usually told “if you can’t do the work we’ll find someone else who can, your well-being is not my concern”.

    I only had a receptive audience when I got higher up on the totem pole, and then I was given enough grace to take a mental health day periodically. But if it’s this bad in a field where everyone is highly educated and trained on managing stress, I can’t imagine what a nightmare it is elsewhere. I’d personally rather have a job with a decent but not amazing salary that allows me to enjoy my personal life to its fullest than a job with a higher salary that takes over my life.

    And I’d know…I got a big promotion two months ago where I’m expected to do literally everything under the sun and I’m already growing weary of it despite the fact the money is great. There’s just…so much more to life than acquiring riches and padding your resume. Anyway, would I buy a diesel?

    That depends. I actually daily’d a 2005-2010ish (can’t remember the specific year as my dad had bought it off a friend) E320 diesel for a few months back in 2017 and I honestly really enjoyed it. My dad had basically bought it because his environmentalist friend wanted to offload it and stop running biodiesel in it in favor of being an early EV adapter. He gave it to him for pennies on the dollar since he’s super wealthy and wanted to do a friend a favor.

    It got passed around my siblings and I when we were just starting our careers out…but I wound up with it for a few months. In a luxury sedan application I actually thought the diesel was great. It wasn’t a rocket off the line or anything but the gobs of low end torque made it an absolute weapon for highway cruising.
    Once you got the thing moving and had the engine in the powerband it was one of the faster cars I’ve driven. Not traditionally fast of course, but if you wanted to go from 60-80 to pass the thing was a damn missile. Maintenance was also easy and that was back when diesel was cheap, so for someone who wasn’t making a ton of money it was great.

    Unfortunately I totaled it in the only accident I’ve ever gotten into. I was coming home from a really late night working in the field and was absolutely exhausted. I wound up zoning out and rear ending someone who was trying to make a sharp turn into an alley right over the crest of a hill. It was absolutely my fault, but I’d driven that route dozens of times and had never encountered anyone making that specific turn.

    Airbags didn’t go off or anything but the insurance company totaled it out rather than deal with rebuilding a Mercedes…my family still gives me shit about it to this day, which kind of sucks because even minor accidents are traumatic. I wound up being rear ended 3 days later as well. Rough couple of weeks. Anyway, if I could get a good deal on a comfy diesel highway cruiser I might consider it, because I really liked that car…and if I hadn’t totaled it like an idiot 26 year old I might still have it today.

    1. Hustle culture is just letting yourself be exploited. I had looked into working at a couple companies that offered such perks as getting to design your own cubicle (i.e. mix and match cube pieces) and a beer fridge, which really meant that you were supposed to make the job your personality and your social life, so I stayed far away. The people I knew who went to work for those places burned out so fast. I don’t make amazing money, but I don’t have to spend all my time focused on work, so I’m pretty okay where I am.

      Mental health is a rough field. You know the stress and the overworking are bad, but you feel like you need to push through to help others. And you should separate yourself from the work, but, being human, you carry it with you. I hope you find a way to balance it all (or a job that lets you).

      And two accidents within 4 days is rough. I thought I had it bad when I got rear-ended one Monday and backed into the next Monday. And nothing was even totaled in those.

  18. I’d buy a used diesel vehicle, probably something like a W123 Mercedes since they’ve more than proven themselves as reliable.

    As for new diesels, probably not unless my needs changed. I don’t do enough truck things to need one of the big trucks like a Super Duty. It would be a pain in the ass to even fit one in my driveway. I’ve driven one of the 3.0 diesel F-150s and wasn’t too impressed either. It had great torque and felt fine to drive but I don’t think the extra diesel cost is with it when you could have spent less for a 3.5 one that also made more power and could tow more.

    1. I have a W211 before they went with the Bluetec and it’s been a tank. 230K+ Unfortunately, it seems all the emissions controls have seriously borked modern diesels.

  19. I wouldn’t mind having an older Dodge 3/4T with the Cummins 6BT. Horse-y people seem to like them, and our F-250 burns enough gas that we wince every time we have to do truck stuff. I don’t care for the faux semi-truck look of modern Dodges, but it probably gives better visibility at the corners.

  21. Years ago when I was still racing I was in the market for a truck to tow my race car a couple of times a year. I looked at diesels and the initial price premium, higher cost of fuel, and higher cost of maintenance swayed me away and I bought a gas V8. If I was towing regularly maybe the diesel would make more sense, but in my case I didn’t need the extra capability of a diesel so it didn’t make sense for me to pay more for one.

  22. I knew a guy that bought a first gen diesel Rabbit. Painfully slow. He then pulled the front end off and shoved a TDI in place of the existing. No longer painfully slow after that.

    I would buy one of those.

    I have also long wanted to buy a ’70s era F-series and throw it on a frame from a ’00-ish 7.3L Powerstroke. Have that be my tow-pig.

    But a new diesel? Probably not.

      1. Given Musk propensity for childish toilet humor (something I’m not above myself), it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that’s his actual title, and his concern was justified.

      2. It sounds like they just tripled his workload without changing his title, which begs the question of compensation. I mean, I’m sure he’s paid well beyond what I could ever imagine, but I’ve been on the receiving end of “we just fired that guy you told us not to hire in the first place, so now we need you to take over all of his responsibilities in addition to your own, pay and title stay the same” bit before and it does kind of suck no matter who you are

  23. The two least reliable and biggest money pit vehicles I’ve ever owned have been supposedly “half-million mile” diesels (Ford 7.3, VW 1.9), so you’ll forgive me if I won’t go near a diesel ever again, new or used.

    The expensive fuel and maintenance makes them a losing proposition financially anyways, but my hatred for them is so intense that I legitimately wouldn’t have taken a Powerstroke engine upgrade for free when I bought my truck (actual price: $10,000)

    1. I’m a diesel mechanic, and also not a fan of them.
      There have been some cool diesel cars, but the gasoline version is pretty much always better.

  24. If I were going for a diesel I would be importing something obscure from Europe, which would of course ultimately end up being a very expensive mistake, but such is life.

  25. I’d consider a used diesel, just because the engines tend to be pretty durable, but I don’t know what it would need to be. I don’t tow enough to need a big diesel pickup, and I’m not insecure enough in my masculinity to buy one I won’t get proper use out of. My Silverado 1500 is already a little more pickup than I generally want for my uses.
    I’d probably buy a diesel Mercedes wagon or something if the right one came up, though.

    1. The city where I live has just brought in an “ultra low emissions zone” just down the road from my house, and that pretty much rules out most second-hand diesels for me.

      1. Yeah, that would certainly put a damper on them. I currently run a PHEV, so I am definitely not seeking a diesel, but I live in a state that certainly isn’t putting in low emissions zones in the foreseeable future, so I certainly wouldn’t rule one out.
        How strict is the ultra low? Is that electric operation only, or do they allow regular hybrids?

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