The past few days have been tough for electric vehicle (EV) makers – both Tesla and Chinese EV startup Nio have been in the news because some of their cars had seemingly spontaneously caught on fire. Now, China’s largest EV maker BYD finds itself getting unwanted attention from an unfortunate car burning accident.
A video of a burning BYD E5 surface online on Tuesday morning. In the video, a white BYD car was burning and emitting smoke as it parked in front of a building in Wuhan, the capital of China’s Hubei province. The fire appeared to be mostly coming from the trunk of the car, while the front of the car seemed unaffected.
Nobody was in the car when the accident occurred and the cause of the fire is currently under investigation by the local authorities.
In a statement published on its Weibo channel, BYD said there was no casualty in the car burning accident and the company had sent a team to investigate the fire. “After a preliminary investigation, the origin of the fire was at the trunk of the car, and the battery of the car, which is located at the chassis, remains intact,” BYD said.
It’s the third EV burning accident in China, across different brands, since Sunday. A Tesla car burst into flames in a Shanghai basement carpark on Sunday. One day later, a Nio ES8 caught fire while it was while being repaired in Xi’an. The accidents have caused a heated online debate about the safety of EV technology.