(Yicai Global) Jan. 12 -- A brand new plug-in hybrid vehicle of Great Wall Motors caught fire in just 10 minutes after the driver was forced to stop on the road in Shanghai and noticed smoke coming out of the trunk.

The driver, who had bought the WEY VV7 GT crossover vehicle 11 days before the incident, stopped on an elevated highway in the eastern city on Jan. 10 to observe the fire that left behind only the chassis.

"I was driving as usual yesterday and heard a sound similar to an explosion or collision with a strong vibration," the car owner told Yicai Global the next day. The vehicle’s dashboard was showing battery and engine faults. The engine stalled and the car moved slowly up to 20 meters forward. "Then I could not start the engine anymore."

"The fire began in a very short time since the smoke and went out of control in one or two minutes." He called an after-sales consultant. The car had not shown any signs of defects before the accident.

Great Wall Motors is in touch with the car owner, looking for the causes of the incident, and has sent a specialized team to Shanghai, Yicai Global learned from the Baoding-based firm.

China's rapidly expanding new energy vehicle market has encountered almost 130 car explosions between 2011 and 2019, involving 38 automakers and 48 car models. Almost 40 percent of those vehicles were moving at the moment of bursting into flames.

Batteries' thermal runaways are a major reason why electric cars can self-ignite, said Ouyang Minggao, academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The key to ensuring safety is developing advanced battery management systems, but China has many deficiencies to overcome in this regard, Ouyang added.

Great Wall Motors's stock price [SHA: 601633] was 7.9 percent up at CNY49.75 (USD7.70) this afternoon after falling in the morning.

Editor: Emmi Laine