Tata Nexon EV fire incident is currently trending all over the internet as one electric version of the Tata Motors’ Nexon SUV caught fire near Panchvati hotel in Mumbai late on Wednesday. Although the reason behind the fire is not known and Tata Motors is still investigating the incident, Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal saw this as a right opportunity to come out in the defence of electric vehicles. “EV fires will happen. Happens in all global products too. EV fires are much less frequent than ICE fires.” Aggarwal wrote on Twitter.
For context, EV fires have been a hot topic in the country for the last one year as several EV companies including Ola, Pure EV, Okinawa Autotech, Jitendra EV, and others have been involved in similar incidents. Earlier this year, an Ola S1 Pro electric scooter caught fire in Pune on the side of a road, and a preliminary assessment found that it was an “isolated incident”. Ola Electric later voluntarily recalled 1,441 scooters as a pre-emptive measure to conduct a detailed health check of the concerned batch.
Following the fire incident involving Tata Nexon EV, Tata Motors also issued a statement. “A detailed investigation is currently being conducted to ascertain the facts of the recent isolated thermal incident that is doing the rounds on social media. We will share a detailed response after our complete investigation. We remain committed to the safety of our vehicles and their users. This is a first incident after more than 30,000 EVs have cumulatively covered over 100 million km across the country in nearly 4 years.” the statement from Tata Motors reads.
As per the video circulation on the social media platforms, the owner of the car charged his Nexon EV with a normal slow charger installed at his office. After driving about 5 km towards his house, he heard some weird sounds from the car and saw flashes of warnings on the dashboard which alerted him to stop the vehicle and get out of the car, media reports said.
(with input from agencies)
