A NIO ES8 catches fire in maintenance closely following Tesla's self-ignite

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- NIO, one of Tesla's rivals in China, came across a burning incident on April 22 less than 24 hours after a Tesla Model S exploded in a Shanghai-based parking lot.

A NIO ES8 SUV caught fire while it was being repaired at an authorized service center in Xi’an, capital of Shaanxi Province, NIO said via its official Sina Weibo account. The startup also stated that the fire was quenched immediately and no casualty or property damage happened in the unexpected incident.

Meanwhile, NIO said it has started an investigation and will publish the findings afterwards.

Gasgoo reported on the same day that Tesla also sent a team to investigate a video circulating on China's Twitter-like social media that showed a white Tesla Model S parked in a Shanghai parking lot bursting into flames. It seems that the exploding also destroyed an Audi and a Lexus car next to the flame source.

According to relevant records, there were at least 14 Tesla car burning incidents since 2013, while most cases took place after car crashes rather than in parked status.

For the first three months of the year, both NIO and Tesla saw their China sales decline over the previous quarter. The two fiery car cases have caused a wide public attention over the safety of electric vehicles. Gasgoo will update the investigating results as soon as they were released.