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Xiaomi has hired Dieter Lorenz, Tesla’s Senior Manager of Delivery Operations for Central Europe, as its new Head of Delivery & Logistics Europe. The move signals that Xiaomi is aggressively building an operations infrastructure on the ground in Europe well ahead of its confirmed 2027 market entry.
Lorenz isn’t the only Tesla operations employee making the jump, either. At least one other former Tesla operations staffer in Europe has also landed at Xiaomi, suggesting a deliberate recruitment push targeting Tesla’s European logistics expertise.
From Tesla lifer to Xiaomi’s European logistics lead
Lorenz spent over six years at Tesla in Germany, rising through a series of increasingly senior operations roles. He started as an Operations Supervisor in early 2020, moved up to Operations Manager for Germany, then expanded his scope to cover Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic, then all of Central Europe. By September 2024, he held the title of Senior Manager of Delivery Operations for Central Europe — one of Tesla’s most important regional logistics roles.
In a LinkedIn post announcing his departure, Lorenz wrote that he is “now looking forward to the next chapter as Head of Delivery & Logistics Europe at Xiaomi Technology, taking on new challenges and opportunities.”
The post drew dozens of congratulatory comments, including from former Tesla colleagues and notably from Marvin M., another former Tesla operations employee in Europe who appears to have also joined Xiaomi. Marvin commented that they would continue working together at the new company.
Xiaomi is building a full European operations team
The Lorenz hire fits into a broader pattern. Xiaomi opened its European R&D and Design Center in Munich in September 2025, led by Rudolf Dittrich, a former BMW Motorrad manager, and Kai Langer, former head of design at BMW i. At the time, we noted that the Munich center would serve as Xiaomi’s beachhead for European expansion.
Now the company is clearly moving beyond R&D and design into the operational side — delivery logistics, registrations, and after-sales. Reports indicate Xiaomi has been actively recruiting for a country manager, a head of retail operations, and specialists in vehicle logistics across multiple European markets including Germany, France, and Spain.
This is the playbook you’d expect from a company that’s serious about selling cars in Europe by 2027. You don’t hire a Head of Delivery & Logistics for a continent unless you plan to actually deliver cars there.
Part of a wider Tesla talent drain
Lorenz’s departure adds to what has become a sustained exodus of talent from Tesla across every function. We’ve tracked dozens of senior departures since mid-2024, spanning finance, engineering, manufacturing, sales, and program management. Last week alone, Tesla’s head of customer experience left for Coinbase and a key Cybercab assembly leader also departed.
The European operations side is particularly painful for Tesla. The automaker’s European registrations collapsed throughout 2025, with full-year 2025 registrations dropping 27.8% to just 235,000 units. Losing the people who know how to run delivery operations efficiently across the continent, right when sales are already struggling, compounds the problem.
Meanwhile, Xiaomi is on a roll. The company recently hired Kong Yanshuang, Tesla’s former China General Manager, to lead its automotive sales operations. It delivered over 410,000 EVs in 2025 and is targeting 550,000 in 2026. Its refreshed SU7 sedan generated 15,000 orders in 34 minutes. The company confirmed 2027 as its first year for European sales.
Electrek’s Take
This is what the early stages of a serious European market entry look like. Xiaomi isn’t just opening a design studio and testing cars on the Autobahn, it’s hiring the people who know how to get cars from a port to a customer’s driveway across a dozen countries with different regulations, registration processes, and consumer expectations.
Hiring Tesla’s delivery operations manager for Central Europe is a smart move. Lorenz spent six years learning the exact logistics infrastructure that Xiaomi will need to replicate. He was there when Tesla brought Model 3 and Model Y to Europe, resulting in a massive expansion of its logistics capabilities.
Some of those cars came from China, just as Xiaomi is expected to do with its launch in Europe.
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