crossorigin="anonymous"> JLR whistleblower fired for publishing concerns about VinFast cars. – Subrang Safar: Your Journey Through Colors, Fashion, and Lifestyle

JLR whistleblower fired for publishing concerns about VinFast cars.


BBC A man in a white shirt and black suit jacket sits in a dark room with a blindfold on. He has short black hair and a black beard.The BBC
Mechanical engineer Hazar Danley says he was fired because of safety concerns.

The BBC has seen evidence that the multinational corporation that owns Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) managed to sack a whistleblower after she raised concerns about the safety of the electric cars it designed. had done

Secret emails between Tata Group executives show they retaliated against mechanical engineer Hazar Danley for posting concerns on Reddit that lives were being put at risk. After that he was blacklisted.

US authorities are now investigating an older model of the same car after 28 reports of safety defects and a crash that killed four members of a family.

In response to the BBC’s detailed right to reply letter, both JLR and the Tata Group declined to comment.

Mr Danley, from Milton Keynes, first raised concerns internally while working for the Tata Group, a different division of its global engineering consultancy Tata Technologies.

He told the BBC that in test-driving prototypes, designed by Tata Technologies for Vietnamese carmaker Vinfast, he identified incorrectly designed components in the car’s chassis, including its The suspension system is also included.

At low mileage, some of them were breaking, he said.

Mr Danley added that this created a risk that under stress, such as hitting a pothole at speed, the wheels could misalign, causing the car to veer left or right without warning, and The driver may lose control.

“We saw, for example, the front strut-to-knuckle connection coming loose, which can be extremely dangerous,” he said. “This can cause the entire structure to loosen, causing the wheels to come off.

“In a crash scenario, it could be completely unsafe. It could cause the vehicle to lose control.”

Getty Images A black car with the letters VF8 on the number plate and two black scooters and a blue car in the background at the showroomGetty Images

US authorities have launched an investigation into VinFast VF8 after the drivers’ flaws were reported.

‘alarm bells’

Mr Danley, who specializes in chassis design, was appointed to lead the engineering team working on the car’s front suspension and chassis from September 2022, halfway through the design and testing phase, he said. The timetable was exceptionally tight.

He soon became concerned that VinFast was cutting corners with safety while keeping costs down by employing a small team of inexperienced engineers.

His concerns grew when he heard that three of his predecessors had left the project after short breaks.

They say that in February and March 2023, during intensive testing on VinFast cars at Mira Technology Park near Newton, two components broke and two failed.

He reported the “extremely worrying” incidents to colleagues at Tata Technologies Ltd (TTL), the UK division of the consultancy based in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire.

In subsequent testing, he alleged, more components failed.

Mr Danley said they were failing after less than 25,000 kilometers (15,534 miles), when they are normally expected to last at least 150,000 kilometers (93,205 miles).

“In the drive units, some brackets were failing completely and falling on the road,” he said. “We are talking about one or two kilograms of aluminum.

“This [incidents] Alarm bells started ringing shortly before we went into production.”

He brought his concerns to senior executives at TTL and VinFast and recommended that they redesign the defective components and produce safer, higher-quality parts.

This would lead to a rapid increase in costs and would require the One Fast Group to postpone production of the car.

But VinFast, which was preparing to sell shares in itself and raise funds by floating on the New York Stock Exchange, pushed production forward instead.

Mr Danley asked Tata Technologies to reassign him to another project but senior managers refused.

Unhappy with being associated with One Fast Car, he says, he resigned in May last year.

With his skills as a consultant engineer in demand, Mr Danley later found new work through an agency at JLR in Gayden, also owned by the Tata Group.

But he continued to see online reports showing serious safety defects in earlier models of the same VinFast car — including a video showing a car rolling over without a driver — and the vehicles. Crashing where the wheels came off.

In another report, a One Fast car caught fire in a showroom in Germany.

The same components he was testing in VinFast’s VF6 and VF7 models were carried over from two models already sold in the US, Vietnam and Europe – the VF8 and VF9.

Then on April 24 this year Four members of a family were killed in the accident. in Pleasanton, California. Police reported that the vehicle lost control, veered off the road, hit a utility pole and caught fire.

The following month, US safety regulator the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced it was reviewing the VinFast VF8. Onefast said it was cooperating with the investigation.

Reports of the accident prompted Mr Danley to publish the posts. on a Reddit account He said that he had worked on the design of the car and that it was a vehicle on which he believed lives were at risk.

“I’ll go into every other car I’ve designed from other brands… and every car has flaws… but Winfast, I’ll never go into one… never and I’ll never let my loved ones ride in it. Will give,” he wrote

Two months later, on July 18 this year, Mr Danley’s contract at JLR was terminated.

Getty Images A bright blue VinFast electric car is parked at an outdoor charging station. Only the rear of the vehicle can be seen, with the charging hatch open. An image of the gray version of the car can be seen in front of the car.Getty Images

Onefast is a client of the Tata Group, owner of Jaguar Land Rover.

Internal documents obtained through a Data Subject Access Request (DSAR) show that a senior executive at his former employer Tata Technologies was in touch with JLR executives about his termination.

After seeing the Reddit posts, Tata Technologies HR director Patrick Flood discussed his company’s desire to terminate Mr Danley’s new employment with JLR HR director and board member Dave Williams.

Mr Flood told Mr Williams that Tata Group client One Fast Advertising had carried out its own investigation and identified Mr Danley as the author of the Reddit posts: “The concern is that if he has just done this He can do the same at JLR.”

On the same day he was sacked, Mr Danley was blacklisted on industry recruitment platform Magnet, which told JLR he had been “red-flagged” by the platform for any other work from him. Applications will also be automatically rejected.

On July 19, Mr Flood emailed JLR corporate investigators: “I just wanted to see if the individual’s employment with JLR has been terminated?” The investigator confirmed that he had.

Internal documents show that another Tata Technologies engineer confirmed to JLR that there were problems with the components that Mr Danley had warned about on Reddit.

Mr Danley said his bosses at JLR knew he had done nothing wrong in his JLR job and told him he had been fired because the Tata Group had criticized his postings about its client, One Fast. was ashamed of

Now they are taking JLR to the Employment Tribunal.

“I was concerned about what was happening around the world where innocent people were paying the price – a very high price,” he said.

“I thought that if some people started talking about it, they would actually be forced to make some changes. Unfortunately, their response was not to make improvements, but to say, ‘Hey, Who said that? Let’s go and shut it up.’

On September 12, NHTSA opened an investigation into the Vinfast VF8.

It announced that it is looking for 3,118 VinFast vehicles. VF8 cars purchased in 2023 and 2024 sold in the U.S. after 14 drivers reported malfunctioning lane keep assist systems.

NHTSA said drivers reported that the system “has difficulty detecting lanes on the roadway, provides inaccurate steering input and is difficult for the driver to override”.

VinFast said it will fully cooperate with NHTSA throughout the process.

“We take all security concerns seriously and will continue to monitor the situation closely,” VinFast told Reuters, expressing the company’s confidence in its security standards.

The number of reports of safety problems NHTSA receives is now Turned 28.

Getty Images Close-up of a man's hand using a mobile phone. He is wearing a cream jumper and brown trousers and is sitting in a room with a gray carpet and rug.Getty Images

Proponents say stronger protections for whistleblowers are needed.

Parliamentary Bill to support whistleblowers

In UK employment law, workers must be protected from employer retaliation if they disclose information that they reasonably believe is likely to endanger the health and safety of any individual. It is possible.

Under the Public Interest Disclosure at Work Act 1998, any contract clause that seeks to bind them to silence is void.

However, there is growing pressure in Parliament for stronger safeguards for whistleblowers amid concerns that existing protections are too weak.

A bill will be introduced on Wednesday that proposes the creation of a whistleblower’s office to protect activists who speak out.

Supporters such as Baroness Susan Cramer, the former transport minister, say Mr Danley’s case is not unusual and highlights why the bill is needed.

“Whistleblowers typically find themselves fired, blacklisted for future employment and pay a huge price in terms of their personal careers,” he said.

“This is not acceptable, because we need whistleblowers to stop wrongdoing and expose wrongdoing.”

Georgina Halford Hall, chief executive of Whistleblowers UK, said: “This story is one of hundreds we hear every year from whistleblowers who are rewarded for doing the right thing with retaliation.

“Whistleblowers currently have to decide between speaking up and their personal well-being. The best incentive MPs can give is to ensure that whistleblowers are properly protected and that wrongdoing is investigated. “

The BBC provided an opportunity for both the Tata Group and JLR to comment in detail.

Tata Group, the multinational corporation that owns JLR, did not respond.

JLR said it did not comment on ongoing legal proceedings.

VinFast said: “We do not interfere in the recruitment or HR activities of the Tata Group or its companies. We have no further comment on the matter.”

Getty Images Black-framed windows in front of car showroom and the words Vinfast in silver letters above the doorsGetty Images

VinFast has denied that it interfered with Tata Group’s HR activities.



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