Engineers working for the sister company of Jaguar Land Rover were locked in a Vietnamese factory in a rush to get an “unsafe” car to market, whistleblowers have told The Times.
One worker, who claimed he was sacked by Jaguar Land Rover after raising concerns about the electric cars, said he feared the vehicles had “critical” safety faults.
Hazar Denli, formerly an engineer at Tata Technologies Limited (TTL), the UK consultancy arm of the Indian multinational Tata Group, shared his safety concerns on the website Reddit after witnessing faults in a vehicle produced for the Vietnamese company VinFast.
VinFast, a subsidiary of Vietnam’s largest company, Vingroup, contracted TTL to design a range of electric vehicles. It launched its vehicles in the US in 2022, and opened an assembly plant in North Carolina in 2023, but has scrapped plans to release right-hand drive vehicles.
Denli, who worked in the UK testing VinFast’s prototypes, quit his job as he was unhappy being associated with the car. He was later hired by Jaguar Land Rover, a subsidiary of Tata Group.
But after seeing repeated reports of crashes of VinFast cars, which appeared to show serious safety faults, he posted on the forum Reddit with details about the cars. Although he posted anonymously, his identity was revealed to TTL by the Vietnamese manufacturer, who Denli alleges contacted Jaguar Land Rover to demand his sacking. He has launched employment proceedings for unfair dismissal.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the US road safety regulator, is reviewing the VinFast VF8 after a family of four was killed in a crash in Pleasanton, California. Police reported that the vehicle lost control, veered off the road, hit a pole and caught fire.
Denli described a “rushed” development process and said staff were under so much pressure to produce the car that engineers in Vietnam were locked in the factory overnight to force them to keep working.
Hazar Denli posted about the flaws in the VinFast VF8 on Reddit
BBC
A second member of staff, who spoke to The Times on condition of anonymity, confirmed he had been locked in the factory over a weekend as part of VinFast’s push for productivity.
In internal documents seen by The Times, a representative of Tata acknowledged a lockdown took place. The document, a summary of a meeting between a corporate investigator and another member of Tata staff, states: “There was one specific story he referenced [in his Reddit post] at some point during Covid issues they locked down the factory — anyone in the factory was locked in and slept there.
“There were only a few people subjected to that lockdown. We know the guys involved in that and know that Hazar was good mates with one of them. We know not firsthand experience but know who he was getting information from.”
However Denli alleged that the lockdown was due to pressure from VinFast for staff to keep working to get the car to market.
The second whistleblower, who was subject to the lockdowns, said the production process was so rushed that lockdowns were a frequent occurrence.
He said: “There’s lots of incidents where people were locked in the factory. There were also lots of instances where people on their way to the airport and were told to turn around, not get on the flight and get back to the factory. That was the nature and the culture.”
The pressure to get the car to market resulted in the testing being “completely rushed”, Denli alleged.
At the time VinFast was preparing for a public listing on the New York Stock Exchange. The company debuted on the Nasdaq in August 2023, after a merger with another company.
Denli left his job, uncomfortable with the way the project was being managed, and was later hired by Jaguar Land Rover. He was then dismissed by Jaguar over the Reddit post.
VinFast and TTL were contacted for comment. A spokesman for Jaguar Land Rover said: “We do not comment on ongoing legal proceedings.”
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