WM Motor’s Electric Car Bursts Into Flames, Again

An electric car from Chinese EV-maker Weltmeister Motor (WM Motor) caught fire on the road in Wenzhou, a city in eastern China, on September 23, WM Motor confirmed on its official Weibo account.

The owner of the EX5 model, saw smoke coming from the seats, followed by a fire spreading throughout the cabin and soon the entire car was in flames. WM Motor stated that the fire was swiftly put out by firefighters and ensured that there were no human casualties.

However, this is not the first time WM’s EX5 has combusted. In August, just one month before a mass delivery of the cars to customers, an early test model that had recently been subjected to multiple rounds of destructive testing, allegedly caught fire during dismantling procedures. The company said that the process was not completed after circuit protection devices were removed, causing a short circuit.

The incident is the latest in a series of EV fire hazards both domestically and globally. EV makers including Tesla, Nio and BYD confirmed via social media that some of their vehicles caught fire in different areas of China. Back in June, NIO issued a mass recall of its ES8 models following at least three instances of fire incidents with its ES8 models. And a video of a burning BYD E5 surfaced online in April after the trunk of the car ignited.

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Seeing the potential risk involved with electric vehicles, the equipment industry development center of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice in June, asking new energy vehicle (NEV) makers to report vehicle-related fire incidents to the authority within 12 hours.

The market for electric vehicles in China has grown enormously over the past few years. In 2017, over 770,000 units were sold, up 53% compared to 2016. This number is expected to reach one million during 2018 compared to 400,000 in the US.