Tesla is investigating how one of its cars appeared to suddenly catch fire on a busy street near Los Angeles. Cellphone video shows flames shooting out of the electric vehicle last week. 
 
 Local authorities said it could have been a faulty battery, but Tesla says it's still too early to know exactly what happened. 
 
 A Model S quickly caught fire Friday afternoon in West Hollywood, California. Actress Mary McCormack tweeted cellphone video of the fire, saying, "Tesla this is what happened to my husband and his car today …. no accident, out of the blue, in traffic…." 
 
 @Tesla This is what happened to my husband and his car today. No accident,out of the blue, in traffic on Santa Monica Blvd. Thank you to the kind couple who flagged him down and told him to pull over. And thank god my three little girls weren’t in the car with him pic.twitter.com/O4tPs5ftVo — Mary McCormack (@marycmccormack) June 16, 2018 
 
 Tesla is calling the incident "extraordinarily unusual." 
 
 In a statement Tesla said, "Our initial investigation shows that the cabin of the vehicle was totally unaffected by the fire due to our battery architecture, which is designed to protect the cabin in the very rare event that a battery fire occurs." 
 
 "Well, of course the video footage itself looks alarmist," Alistair Weaver, editor-in-chief at Edmunds, told CBS News correspondent Jamie Yuccas. "There's obviously been some issues with lithium ion batteries in the past, particularly around cellphones, but electric car batteries are very different. It's a lot of sophisticated technology." 
 
 Tesla maintains that it takes extraordinary measures to protect passengers from fires, which it says are at least 10 times less likely in a Tesla than in a gas-powered car. 
 
 "We've driven over 50,000 miles in these vehicles and have never replicated this or anything like it, nor have we seen any evidence elsewhere of other cars spontaneously catching fire, so I think it needs more investigation," said Weaver. 
 
 YouTube/LiveLeak 
 
 Other incidents where Teslas caught fire involved collisions, like a deadly Florida crash last month, or impact with objects on the road, like this 2013 accident in Washington State. 
 
 There were no injuries in this latest incident, and Tesla says it is still working to understand the cause of the fire. ||||| Tesla's stock is burning up. 
 
 Tesla Inc. (TSLA) shares slumped in pre-market trading Monday following a weekend report that one of its electric cars, owned by British film director Michael Morris, burst into flames in Hollywood over the weekend. 
 
 Actress Mary McCormack, who is married to the director of the Netflix Inc. (NFLX) series 13 Reasons Why, Kingdom and Bloodline. filmed the incident, which she said took place on Santa Monica Blvd in Los Angeles, and posted it on the social networking site Twitter. Tesla said it was investigating the incident. 
 
 "This is what happened to my husband and his car today," McCormack said in a Saturday post that has since been deleted. "No accident, out of the blue, in traffic on Santa Monica Blvd." 
 
 Tesla shares were marked 1.9% lower in pre-market trading in New York Monday, indicating and opening bell price of $352.6 each, a move that would trim the stock's year-to-date gain to around 13.5%. 
 
 @Tesla This is what happened to my husband and his car today. No accident,out of the blue, in traffic on Santa Monica Blvd. Thank you to the kind couple who flagged him down and told him to pull over. And thank god my three little girls weren't in the car with him pic.twitter.com/O4tPs5ftVo — Mary McCormack (@marycmccormack) June 16, 2018 
 
 The report is the latest in a series of negative headline and setbacks for the Elon Musk-founded group, which is attempting to convince its investors that it won't seek fresh capital in the months ahead and that it can meet its own aggressive delivery targets despite recent layoffs and ongoing bottlenecks in its production. 
 
 Musk himself Tweeted Saturday that a new assembly line had been completed in three weeks at his Fremont, Calif., facility as he continues to push to meet the 5,000-unit-a-week target for production of his mid-priced Model 3 sedan. 
 
 Amazing work by Tesla team. Built entire new general assembly line in 3 weeks w minimal resources. Love u guys so much! Pic of 1st Model 3 dual motor performance coming off the line … pic.twitter.com/Xr55P3fmGd — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 16, 2018 
 
 Last week, filings revealed that Musk bought about 72,000 Tesla shares between June 12 and 13th for $342.77 to $347 a share and now owns 33.74 million shares worth a staggering roughly $12 billion at current prices. 
 
 That follows Musk's previous most recent insider purchase of 33,000 shares between $295.02 and $302.13 on May 7th. That came less than a week after Tesla reported its fiscal first quarter of earnings. ||||| Tesla Motors shares continued to fall Thursday as the automaker confirmed a third fire in one of its high-end electric cars and a major auto reviewer pointed out problems with its Model S luxury hatchback. 
 
 The 9%, or $13.40, decline in mid-morning trading to $137.76 followed a 15% plunge in the shares Wednesday after the automaker said limited supplies of batteries were hampering sales and that it was spending heavily on research and development to design new models. Tesla shares have been on a run for most of the year, rising about 400% before this reversal. 
 
 Car shopping website Edmunds.com said its 2013 Model S was “making an ominous noise under acceleration and deceleration. It originates from the rear of the car and seems to be getting worse.” 
 
 PHOTOS: Tesla Model S 
 
 It is a complaint that’s also starting to show up on Tesla’s owners forum, an online discussion group hosted by the automaker for drivers of its cars. 
 
 “Mine had that and it got bad at 70 mph,” said one owner, posting under the “mortgagebruce” moniker. 
 
 He said Tesla had to replace the drive unit twice to fix the problem. 
 
 Tesla also replaced the drive unit on the Edmunds car, but declined to tell the company what caused the problem. It also replaced the driver door mechanism because of another problem. The car has just less than 11,000 miles on the road. 
 
 “We're not sure what to think about the fact that both of these repairs were completed with just one overnight stay,” said Mike Schmidt, Edmunds’ vehicle testing manager. “Maybe the dealer is really on the ball. Maybe the supply chain is short. Or maybe the parts are readily available because they've seen these before.” 
 
 Tesla spokeswoman Liz Jarvis Shean said she was not familiar with the Edmunds complaint. 
 
 Meanwhile, another Model S electric car caught fire Wednesday near Smyrna, Tenn., following a crash. This was the third Model S to have caught fire in the last five weeks. One burned near Seattle and another in Mexico. Both cars were in crashes and the fires injured no one. 
 
 
 
 Normally, car fires are not significant events that influence investors. There are about 150,000 annually, according to the National Fire Protection Assn. However, safety officials have been tracking fires in electric cars, as well as computers and other equipment, out of concern that the lithium-ion battery systems might be fire-prone. 
 
 Earlier this year, federal regulators grounded Boeing 787 planes for four months after batteries on two planes overheated, with one catching on fire. Boeing later ordered modifications to the jets to increase ventilation and insulation near the batteries, but the company and investigators never determined the root cause of the overheating. 
 
 The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reviewed the Tesla fire in Seattle and concluded it was caused by the accident rather than a vehicle defect. 
 
 Tesla said it contacted the driver of the car in Tennessee and noted he was not injured and “believes the car saved his life. Our team is on its way to Tennessee to learn more about what happened in the accident.” 
 
 “The problem is that we have three fires in six weeks,” said Karl Brauer, senior analyst at Kelley Blue Book, the car information company. “For a company with a stock price based as much or more on image than financials, those recurring headlines are highly damaging.” 
 
 The Palo Alto automaker said Tuesday it posted a loss of $38.5 million, or 32 cents per share, in the third quarter. That compares to a loss of $110.8 million, or $1.05 per share, in the same period a year earlier. Now that it is delivering cars, revenue grew to $431 million from just $50.1 million a year earlier. 
 
 Follow me on Twitter (@LATimesJerry), Facebook and Google+. 
 
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– The latest unfortunate headline for Tesla comes courtesy of actress Mary McCormack, who on Friday tweeted a video of a Model S with flames shooting from it. "This is what happened to my husband and his car today. No accident,out of the blue, in traffic on Santa Monica Blvd. Thank you to the kind couple who flagged him down and told him to pull over. And thank god my three little girls weren’t in the car with him," wrote McCormack, who has had leading roles in series including Murder One and The West Wing. Tesla says it is investigating, calling such an incident is "extraordinarily unusual," CBS News reports. Responding to queries on Twitter, McCormack said the Tesla wasn't equipped with Autopilot and that her husband was "barely moving in traffic" at the time. "Our initial investigation shows that the cabin of the vehicle was totally unaffected by the fire due to our battery architecture, which is designed to protect the cabin in the very rare event that a battery fire occurs," Tesla says in a statement. It is not officially blaming a faulty battery for the fire, but local authorities say that could be the case. The editor-in-chief of car site Edmunds notes, "We've driven over 50,000 miles in these vehicles and have never replicated this or anything like it, nor have we seen any evidence elsewhere of other cars spontaneously catching fire, so I think it needs more investigation." The Street notes that Tesla's stock slumped in pre-market trading Monday.