Has your Ford F-150, Honda Civic, Chevy/GMC SUV, or any other combustion-powered vehicle randomly burst into flames when you left it parked in your garage for the night, risking setting your whole house ablaze?
No? Well, that’s because it’s not a car with a lithium-ion battery, as those batteries can ignite in such an unexpected manner. Such is what the owner of a 2019 Jaguar I-Pace named Gonzalo Salazar found out in June of 2022, when he plugged his car, which he had bought new in 2020, in for the night, then unplugged it and left to run some errands.

Here’s what he says happened: “On June 16, I plugged the car in before going to bed. In the morning of June 17, I woke up and unplugged the car. Later that morning, I set out to run some errands. I drove about 12 miles that morning before returning back home and parking the car back in the garage, leaving the garage door open.”Continuing, he described suddenly realizing what was happening, saying, “As I was doing things at home, I heard pops coming from the garage. I decided to go see where the sounds were coming from, and upon walking into the garage, I faced a thick wall of smoke. My thought immediately was, ‘When there is smoke there is fire,’ and I need to get the car out of the house garage.”