(Yicai Global) April 23 -- An electric vehicle made by China's Nio mysteriously caught fire at an authorized service center yesterday, a day after a Tesla unexpectedly exploded in a parking garage.

The Nio ES8 was under repair at a facility in Xi'an and caught fire around noon, the Shanghai-based carmaker said on its Weibo account yesterday. The local fire department reacted quickly and extinguished the blaze, which left no casualties and did not cause major property damage. Nio is investigating the cause, it added.

The evening prior, a Tesla Model S burst into flames in a Shanghai car park and set fire to several nearby vehicles.

Spontaneous combustion has become a recurring issue for electric carmakers as they look to design ultra-long life batteries to stay ahead of the competition. Last year, some 40 vehicles caught fire not as a result of a collision, according to the State Administration for Market Regulation, including a test vehicle from WM Motors.

Outside of China, a Model S crash resulted in a blaze that claimed the driver's life, and the vehicle's battery reignited several times even a day after the incident.

Faraday Future, the American carmaker founded by controversial Chinese entrepreneur Jia Yueting, saw a pre-production FF91 prototype combust last year at a US event demonstrating the car to employees and their families.

Editor: James Boynton