GM sacks Indian auto engineer who helped expose Volkswagen's diesel fraud

Hemanth Kappanna's research helped plunge Volkswagen into a scandal that continues to plague it. In February, he got two months' pay and a one-way ticket to India

Hemanth Kappanna might seem like just another victim of corporate restructuring, a foreign worker whose skills were no longer needed, a middle-aged man with dashed American dreams.

But Mr. Kappanna, an engineer born in India who was laid off by General Motors in February, changed automotive history.

In 2013, he was part of a small team of engineering students in West Virginia whose research helped expose Volkswagen’s decade-long conspiracy to lie about its diesel cars’ emissions. The German carmaker has paid $23 billion so far to resolve criminal charges and lawsuits in the United States, and $33 billion over all.