The owner said that the car was bought 7 or 8 months ago. At the time of the accident, the vehicle was charging and she rushed out of the car after hearing the explosion.
Chinese electric vehicle (EV) company WM Motor is in the spotlight with the latest fire accident.
A WM Motor EX5 caught fire while charging at a charging station in Zhengzhou City, central China's Henan Province, at around 04:30 am on December 21, according to a report by yiche.com today.
(Image credit: yiche.com)
Pictures of the scene show the vehicle was badly damaged, but fortunately, the accident did not cause any casualties, according to the report.
According to another report on cheyun.com, the female owner said that the car was bought 7 or 8 months ago and she was sitting inside the car while charging and rushed out when she heard the explosion.
The car had been burned to a hollow shell in the fire, and people from the company rushed over to investigate the vehicle fire, according to the report.
Last October, the EX5 model had four fires within a month, leading WM Motor to an image crisis.
WM Motor subsequently recalled 1,282 units of the model, saying that the vehicles had abnormal lithium precipitation in the power cell due to impurities mixed in the production process by the cell supplier.
In extreme cases, this could lead to a short circuit in the cells, triggering thermal runaway of the power cell and creating a risk of fire, a safety hazard, the company said at the time.
WM Motor then replaced the power battery packs with cells from other suppliers free of charge for the vehicles covered by the recall.
WM Motor, one of China's most well-known EV companies, has had an average year, failing to report sales figures in several months.
It delivered 5,027 vehicles in November, up 67 percent from a year earlier and a new single-month sales high, the company announced earlier this month.
But compared with October's 5,025 units, WM Motor's deliveries in November were up just two units.
The latest fire incident comes as WM Motor is in the midst of a Series D2 funding round, in which it announced on December 1 that it had secured $152 million led by local real estate developer Agile Property.
WM Motor launched its Series D2 funding round after announcing over $300 million in Series D1 funding in early October. To date, it has raised a total of $457 million in Series D funding, according to the company.
The company expects additional investors to join its D2 round in the future, with total Series D funding expected to exceed $500 million.
WM Motor announced on October 4 that it expects to raise a total of $500 million in new financing in Series D1 and D2.
The D1 round of funding, valued at more than $300 million, was led by Hong Kong-based PCCW and Shun Tak Holdings, with participation from GF Xinde Investment Management's investment arm, according to the company.
After the completion of the D1 round, WM Motor will prefer to go public overseas, Zhang Ran, a partner of the company, said in an interview with The Beijing News on October 15.
WM Motor says it has raised $152 million in Series D2 funding
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