U.S. electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc on Monday said it had sent a team to investigate a video on Chinese social media which showed a parked Tesla Model S car exploding.  The video was widely shared on China`s Twitter-like Weibo, with the hashtag "Tesla self-ignites" becoming one of the most-read topics on the platform, being viewed over five million times.

COMMERCIAL BREAK
SCROLL TO CONTINUE READING

It showed a parked Tesla S starting to emit smoke from its bonnet before exploding and bursting into flames, damaging surrounding cars. A time stamp on the video showed that it occurred on Sunday evening.  Reuters was not immediately able to verify the origins of the video, which Weibo users said was taken in Shanghai. 

Watch Zee Business Live here:

The company currently imports all the cars it sells in China, but it is in the process of building a factory in Shanghai that will manufacture Model 3 cars in the initial phase and help it minimise the impact of the trade war and tariffs.

In March, Tesla also encountered a hiccup when Shanghai customs temporarily suspended clearance for a batch of Tesla`s Model 3 cars citing a labelling issue.