Tesla Is Looking Into The Case Of A Model S Car Exploding In China

Tesla has responded to a video showing a Tesla Model S car exploding in China by sending out a team to look into the matter.

The footage is shared on Weibo and the time shows the incident happened on Sunday. The vehicle first emitted smoke and then burst into flame shortly after that. Three other cars are believed to be destroyed as the result of the incident.

The video has a really bad timing as it surfaced just before Tesla announced its self-driving tech on Monday. The source of video has not been verified yet but many Weibo’s users said that the explosion happened in Shanghai. Tesla’s spokesperson said that the company had sent a team to investigate and so far, no one was hurt in the accident.

This is not the first time a Tesla car catches fire. There have been more than 14 similar incidents from 2014. However, most of fire happened after the car in question crashed. The company said that their electric vehicles are not as prone to fire as cars running on petrol. They came up with this conclusion after testing on over 500,000 EVs running on a total distance of over 10bn miles.

As the result of the recent trade war, Tesla imports all of their cars in the Chinese market but it also build a factory in Shanghai. Experts said that the fire could guide the public attention to how safe EVs are but the chance of the incident decreasing Tesla’s sales or reputation in China is slim.

This accident has made the hashtag “Tesla self-ignites” the latest trend on Weibo. Many users said that the company should find the cause as soon as possible, others show their concern about how the incident impacts Tesla vehicles which are currently in use.

Tesla’s rival in China, Nio, also experienced a similar accident when one of their products caught fire in their service center.