NHTSA Complaint #11705179 — 2021 NISSAN LEAF

*High Voltage Battery defect/failure - this is what was believed to be the issue when it was towed to the dealership. What is left of it is available for inspection at the dealership for now, however the insurance may take it to a salvage yard since the fire department finished their investigation. *While at the dealership after they spent the day trying to recreate what happened they parked it and planned to try again the next day, then someone walked by and saw smoke coming from the car and called 911. They called it a thermal runaway and it burned for hours before being moved to a safer, emptier lot where it was covered in thousands of pounds of sand. The night before the mileage range dropped roughly 70%, unaware of the recall in our mail that hadn't been opened we stopped to try to charge so we could get home. Thankfully none of the chargers worked since the recall was for a potential fire if plugged into a level 3 charger. We tried to drive home only to end up on the side of the road in total system failure. Police sent incident management to get us to safety. If we had made it home we are told this could have caught our home on fire and would likely have blown up our house and taken neighbors houses out as well. It could hurt more people or structures while they tried to recreate the problem. I understand the dealership had $20K in damages from the fire on top of which my car is clearly a total loss. Homes & Businesses nearby had to be evacuated. *Yes, what is left of the car has been inspected by the county fire marshall, insurance co. Police were called, but no investigation. When I called consumer affairs at Nissan, I spoke to 3 different people who said there was nothing they could do. *We had one other time 3 weeks earlier that the range dropped significant, we got home plugged it in and it seemed fine. The only warnings said we were low on miles and to stop to charge which would have made things worse, could have killed us if they had worked.