A driver in my household was driving at normal speeds and smelled smoke in the cabin. She pulled over immediately to the nearest gas station. In that short time, there were FLAMES coming from the center console area. She ran inside to get employees with fire extinguisher. The fire was put out and police/fire department were called. The car was un-drivable, and my insurance declared it as a total loss (it would cost more to repair than the current blue book value). I had a similar problem previously with a Mercedes 2014 CLA250. That was a smaller fire, but melted the console area. I will be submitting a report for that one as well, even though it happened several years ago. After that incident we went back and forth with MB corporate and ultimately took it to dealer and ended up trading in for this one. Both fires were electrical fires from wires underneath the center console.
NHTSA ODI 11492588