Tesla is dealing with a rather worrying incident in Shanghai after one of its Model S electric vehicles emitted a large amount of white smoke before seconds later bursting into flames.

As CNN reports, the incident was recorded by a security camera as the Model S sat parked and not charging in a car park. For now, there isn't a simple explanation as to why this happened, but Tesla has confirmed it is investigating to figure out what exactly went wrong.

A Tesla spokesperson commented, "We immediately sent a team on-site and we're supporting local authorities to establish the facts. From what we know now, no one was harmed."

The incident happened at 8:15pm local time in Shanghai on April 21 and the video quickly made its way on to video site Weibo. It has since been uploaded to YouTube and you can watch the eight seconds of footage above.

Why would a Tesla battery fail in this way when the car wasn't in use or hooked up to a charging point? Hopefully there's enough of the vehicle left for Tesla engineers to answer that question quickly. I suspect the car may have been damaged in some way before it was parked, but even so, no damage should result in a battery exploding.

The Model S has burst into flames before, with examples occurring as far back as 2013. In 2014, Tesla added titanium shields to the underbody to stop them from happening. Now it seems more work may be required to make them safe, especially considering how important China as a market and a manufacturing base is to the company.