Following profit warnings in 2012 and 2013, weak sales in China and tensions with Daimler's powerful labour representatives, his contract was renewed for only three years instead of the expected five.

[2] Zetsche is credited with bringing significant core changes to Mercedes-Benz, in an effort to turn around a decade-long downward spiral in product quality and customer satisfaction.

[3] In September 2018, it was announced that Zetsche will step down as the company's CEO in May 2019, in compliance of a two-year-long hiatus regulatory rule, before becoming chairman of Daimler's supervisory board in 2021,[4] succeeding Manfred Bischoff.

[5] On 30 June 2006 Chrysler Group announced the Employee Pricing Plus program, which featured Dieter Zetsche as Dr. Z (Doctor Zee[6]), the DaimlerChrysler spokesman for a series of US and Canadian television commercials,[7][8] also animated in cartoon format on the company's Ask Dr. Z website, which began on 1 July.

[11] CNW Marketing Research poll showed most people thought Dr. Z was a fictional character, did not notice the employee discount offer in the ads and radio commercial listeners had difficulty understanding his German accent.

[13] In February 2018, before the announcement of his departure from Daimler, in the annual general meeting held by tourism company TUI AG, Zetsche was elected as a member of the supervisory board.

The newspaper Stuttgarter Zeitung reported earlier that the parents of the engineer felt the company should not have put the intern behind the wheel of a fast car on a test track.