A small battery powered car is the one item you'll see on every Christmas or birthday list - that is if your kid doesn't already have one.

Even then, they'll beg for a different style or color so that they can start racing these little cars with their friends.

If that doesn't sound safe, you haven't heard the worst of it.

Of course, there are many things parents have to keep in mind when purchasing a ride-on toy car.

The main thing you have to decide on is where your kids are allowed to ride these battery operated vehicles.

Then, you have to set a speed limit, and try to convince them to wear a helmet.

But according to one Massachusetts mom, there are even more serious hazards you should be considering.

It all started with a strange smell...

Michelle Kline's two young kids were playing in their small electric car in a safe location when the unthinkable happened.

The one-year-old and three-year-old children were driving uphill in a recently-bought SPORTrax Awesome XL model car when Kline smelt something strange.

"It was just kind of that hot electrical smell and [I] saw some smoke coming out of the little hood," she told CBS Boston.

The concerned mother immediately grabbed her two kids out of the $500 car.

Two minutes later, the car burst into flames, leaving nothing but a few plastic and metal pieces.

If Kline wasn't watching her kids, the end result could have been tragic. The mother said that her kids were buckled into the car's seat belts, and so it's unlikely that they could have escaped in time on their own.

Kline told local news reporters that she contacted the manufacturer, but that they didn't speak to her on the matter.

"They did say to the fire inspector, that they did put a lot of fail safes into the car to protect people from this happening, which is again is part of reason we did purchase this car," she said.

Safety concerns

The Fire Chief Bill McCarthy told CBS that it's hard to tell exactly where the fire started from, but there's a huge chance it started where the batteries are.

The department also notified the Consumer Product Safety Commission, fire marshal, distributor and manufacturer to prevent this from happening to any other small battery powered cars.

"Just to see if this is an isolated incident with this one particular vehicle or is at potential issue that it's happened somewhere else," McCarthy said.

A spokesperson for the car's distributor, Rolling Hills Trading, told CafeMom the accident "seems to be an isolated incident."

"We are not the manufacturer, just a distributor. We have forwarded everything we know to the manufacturer. We have discussed this incident at length with the local fire department that responded to the call."

"The woman told the fire inspector that when the Awesome XL was not in use, it was stored plugged into the charger. While the inspector is not able to officially determine the cause of the fire, he said that having the car plugged into the charger for extended periods of time could have caused internal battery damage, and was likely a large contributor to the fire."

Have you ever had issues with your child's electric toy car?

[H/T: CafeMom]