Electric car catches fire and explodes in le-Bizard garage

Montreal firefighters are investigating after an electric car caught fire and exploded inside a residential garage inle-Bizard on Friday.

The explosion launched the garage door clean off and sent it flying across the street.

Piero Cosentinosaw darkclouds of smoke coming from his garage Friday afternoon.

"As soon as I saw that, I immediately turned off the breaker," he told CBC.

Cosentino's car, a Hyundai Kona, was on fire.He had just bought the vehicle in March.

Firefighters were called to the scene around 1 p.m. and were able to put out the blaze. No one was injured.

Still,Cosentinoknows things could have been different.

"If we were in front of the garage door, we could have been in the hospital," he said.

Costentino says the car wasn't charging he insists it wasn't even plugged in.

Electric cars are powered by lithium batteries and some can overheat in extreme temperatures.

Louise Desrosiers, with Montreal's fire service, said that there didn't seem to be any other factors inside the garage that could have caused the explosion.