AUTONEWS

VinFast is involved in yet another serious complaint, locking employees inside the factory to increase production

VinFast is a Vietnamese construction company that is still unknown in Portugal, but is already present in many markets and has offices in Germany, France and the Netherlands. Listed on the US Nasdaq, this Asian manufacturer has now appeared in the news thanks to a former employee who denounced irregular practices, particularly the habit of locking workers inside factories to force them to work more, in order to increase the production.

Until recently, Hazar Denli was an engineer working for Tata Technologies (TTL), a British consultancy firm belonging to the Indian Tata group which, in addition to its own brands, also works for other manufacturers. One of them is the Vietnamese VinFast, for whom TTL developed prototypes and which Denli tested in terms of chassis and suspensions. In one of these tests, the engineer discovered poor construction in some parts, which could break if subjected to greater than normal stress, making the vehicle dangerously unsafe.

Denli would have informed those responsible at TTL and VinFast that incorrect materials were being used to reduce costs, in addition to there being deficiencies in terms of design, as there were parts that did not have a useful life of more than 25,000 km, when should exceed 150,000 km, according to the BBC. In some cases, the fastenings of some screws could also come loose and fall out, but as the stock market launch approached, VinFast preferred not to delay production to rectify the defective parts, deciding to go ahead with the manufacture and sale of potentially unsafe cars. which led Denli to resign from TTL so as not to continue working with the Vietnamese builder.

While the American authorities (NHTSA) launched an investigation into serious accidents involving VinFast models, such as the case of a family of four who died burned after crashing into a pole, Denli responded affirmatively to a job opportunity that It came to him via an agency at Jaguar Land Rover, a British manufacturer that is also owned by Tata. But Hazar Denli continued to be tormented by the accidents that he knew from the press continued to occur with Vietnamese cars. So I decided to create a Reddit account to expose VinFast's shortcomings.

The strategy could have even worked, had it not been for the fact that VinFast launched an investigation to identify the whistleblower on the social network who “spoke his mind”. And when he realized that the whistleblower was Denli, who now worked at JLR, part of the Tata group, all it took was a “little pressure” for the engineer to be unemployed again after two months.

While he was keen to make public VinFast's choices that put its customers' safety at risk, Hazar Denli went further and shared the strange (and decidedly illegal) way in which the brand managed to rush its new electric vehicles to market. encouraging the value of the builder on the stock exchange. According to Denli, which The Times echoes, VinFast resorted to locking employees inside the factory to make them work longer hours each day and thus produce more vehicles.

The Times confirmed Denli's information about working conditions with a Vietnamese construction worker, who said he was locked inside the factory over the weekend. The British newspaper also had access to documentation that proves that not only was Tata aware of the imprisonment of employees in the factories, but the investigation launched by VinFast to determine the identity of the whistleblower on Reddit managed to identify Denli and his source at the manufacturer.

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