Fire at GM design centre destroys concept car

UPDATED 29/10/2025, 10:30am: We’ve updated this story with more details of the fire and its impact on the studio.

More than 100 firefighters battled a blaze at the General Motors Advanced Design Studio in California earlier this week, which destroyed a priceless concept car and took 7.5 hours to officially be declared extinguished.

The fire, according to US publication Car and Driver, started at 5:50pm local time on Wednesday (October 22).

Nobody was injured during the fire.

“The isolated fire was contained to a single design concept vehicle and did not spread to any other vehicles, design concepts, or the building itself,” said a GM spokesperson.

A Pasadena Fire Department spokesperson told Road & Track the damage sustained by the building itself was due mostly to smoke and water from the sprinklers, though the department called in haz-mat teams “out of an abundance of caution” due to the size and complexity of the facility.

Reports suggested lithium-ion battery packs and petrol-powered prototypes were part of the ignition source of the fire, however, an investigation to confirm the cause is yet to be completed. 

CarExpert can save you thousands on a new car. Click here to get a great deal.

Lithium-ion batteries are known to pose unique challenges to firefighters, since they can generate temperatures of up to 1000 degrees Celsius during ‘thermal runway’, as well as toxic gas emissions. 

As well as the electrified vehicles themselves, lithium-ion battery fires have caused significant damage to and losses within nearby vehicles and building structures. 

A major transport company banned electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) from its cargo ships in July 2025, citing safety concerns after a rival company lost a vessel that was ferrying EVs and hybrids from China to Mexico.

The design studio was opened by GM in 2024 as part of a US$71 million (A$109m), 13,843 square-metre campus able to produce everything from initial design sketches to complete production prototypes. 

It also looked to tap into the ‘early-adopter culture’ of California and worked closely with the nearby GM North Hollywood campus to spot emerging trends and new design directions.

Among the products to emerge from the studio are the Corvette concept revealed in July, which the company said “reflects GM’s deep roots in the SoCal [Southern California] design community”.

GM’s Australian design studio, operated by Holden, opened in 1964 at Fishermans Bend in Melbourne, and was closed in 2020 when the Holden brand was axed. 

Australian Michael Simcoe, whose career started in 1983 with Holden and included work on the 2001 Holden Monaro and 2006 VE Commodore, became head of GM Global Design in 2016 before retiring from the role in June.

MORE: Explore the Chevrolet showroom