Jaguar Land Rover Dismisses Whistleblower Over Electric Car Safety Concerns

The BBC has reviewed documentation indicating that the multinational conglomerate owning Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) orchestrated the termination of a whistleblower’s employment after he voiced apprehensions regarding the safety of electric vehicles it engineered. Internal confidential emails exchanged among Tata Group executives disclose that they took punitive action against mechanical engineer Hazar Denli because he published concerns on Reddit, alleging that lives were being jeopardized. Subsequently, he was blacklisted. American authorities are currently probing a previous iteration of the identical vehicle, following 28 documented reports of safety flaws and a fatal collision that resulted in the deaths of a family of four. When presented with a comprehensive right-of-reply inquiry from the BBC, both JLR and Tata Group chose not to provide a statement. Mr. Denli, a resident of Milton Keynes, initially communicated his concerns internally while employed at Tata Technologies, a global engineering consultancy and another subsidiary of the Tata Group. He informed the BBC that during test drives of prototypes, which Tata Technologies had engineered for the Vietnamese automotive manufacturer Vinfast, he discovered inadequately designed components within the car’s chassis, specifically mentioning its suspension system. He stated that some of these parts were fracturing at minimal mileages. Mr. Denli further explained that this situation posed a risk where, under duress—for instance, striking a pothole at high speed—the wheels might become misaligned, leading the vehicle to unpredictably swerve left or right, potentially causing the driver to lose command. “We saw, for example, the front strut-to-knuckle connection was loosening, which could be extremely dangerous,” he stated. “It could cause a loosening of the entire structure that could cause wheels to come off.” “In a crash scenario, it could be completely unsafe. It could cause the vehicle to lose control.” Mr. Denli, an expert in chassis design, assumed leadership of the engineering team responsible for the car’s front suspension and chassis starting in September 2022. This occurred midway through a design and testing period that he characterized as having an exceptionally compressed schedule. He quickly grew apprehensive that VinFast was compromising safety standards, reducing expenses by utilizing a limited group of engineers lacking extensive experience. His worries intensified upon learning that three individuals who previously held his position had resigned after brief tenures on the project. He states that during February and March 2023, while conducting rigorous tests on VinFast vehicles at the Mira Technology Park near Nuneaton, two components detached and another two malfunctioned. He communicated these “extremely concerning” occurrences to colleagues at Tata Technologies Limited (TTL), the UK branch of the consultancy, situated in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. During later testing, he claims additional components malfunctioned. Mr. Denli indicated that these parts were failing before reaching 25,000 km (15,534 miles), whereas their typical lifespan would be anticipated to be a minimum of 150,000 km (93,205 miles). “In the drive units, some of the brackets were completely failing and falling out on to the road,” he stated. “We’re talking one or two kilograms worth of aluminium. “These [incidents] started causing alarm bells to go off just a short time before we we went into production.” He elevated his apprehensions to senior management at both TTL and VinFast, stating that he had advised them to re-engineer the defective components and produce parts of superior safety and quality. Such a course of action, he noted, would have significantly increased expenses and necessitated the VinFast Group delaying the vehicle’s production. However, VinFast, which was in the process of preparing to offer its shares and secure capital through a listing on the New York Stock Exchange, proceeded with production regardless. Mr. Denli requested a reassignment to a different project from Tata Technologies, but senior management denied his request. Feeling unwilling to be linked with the VinFast car, he states he resigned in May of the previous year. Given the demand for his expertise as a consultant engineer, Mr. Denli subsequently secured new employment through an agency at JLR in Gaydon, a company also under the ownership of the Tata Group. Nevertheless, he reported continuously encountering online accounts that seemed to indicate significant safety flaws in prior versions of the same VinFast vehicle. These included a video apparently depicting a car reversing without a driver and instances of crashed vehicles with detached wheels. Another report detailed a VinFast car catching fire at a German showroom. The identical components he had been evaluating in VinFast’s VF6 and VF7 models were inherited from two preceding models, the VF8 and VF9, which were already available for purchase in the United States, Vietnam, and Europe. Subsequently, on April 24th of this year, a family of four perished in a collision in Pleasanton, California. Law enforcement officials stated that the vehicle lost control, departed the roadway, struck a pole, and ignited. The subsequent month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the American safety regulatory body, declared it was initiating a review of the VinFast VF8. VinFast affirmed its cooperation with this inquiry. The accounts of the accident spurred Mr. Denli to post on a Reddit profile, asserting his involvement in the car’s design and his conviction that it was a vehicle that jeopardized human lives. “I would get into every other vehicle I have designed from other brands… and every vehicle has flaws… But Vinfast, I wouldn’t get into one… never will and I won’t let my loved ones get into one either,” he penned. Two months subsequently, on July 18th of this year, Mr. Denli’s employment contract with JLR was ended. Internal documentation, procured via a Data Subject Access Request (DSAR), indicates that a senior executive from his previous employer, Tata Technologies, had communicated with JLR executives to request his termination. Following his observation of the Reddit posts, Patrick Flood, HR director at Tata Technologies, conferred with Dave Williams, JLR’s HR director and board member, regarding his company’s desire to have Mr. Denli’s new position terminated. Mr. Flood informed Mr. Williams that VinFast, a client of Tata Group, had carried out its own inquiry and pinpointed