A quiet evening turned terrifying for the Bayliss family in Northants when their $64,000 electric Mercedes EQA suddenly exploded in flames while parked on their driveway. The car, plugged in to charge, transformed into a dangerous blaze that spread to their garage and damaged part of their home, filling the air with thick smoke and forcing the family to evacuate in the dead of night. While the family escaped unharmed, the incident left a charred vehicle, a severely damaged home, and a lingering question: how could this happen? According to The New York Post , Scott and Georgina Bayliss were watching television when they heard a loud popping sound.
Initially, their 17-year-old son, James, thought it was fireworks, but the noise grew into a thunderous explosion that shook the house. Scott, a 47-year-old in food manufacturing, ran outside to see his luxury electric vehicle consumed by a fierce blaze, the flames spreading rapidly to their garage and scorching the walls of their front bedroom. "The pace and ferocity at which the fire took hold was scary beyond belief," Scott explained.
"It was like a bomb went off right outside our front door." As the fire raged, Scott tried dousing it with a hose, but it was clear the fire was beyond his control. Firefighters soon arrived, battling the blaze and containing the flames before they could destroy the family home.
One potential cause of the fire is a phenomenon known as "thermal runaway," a process where an electric vehicle's lithium .
