By Cynthia Ilako
A Facebook post contains an image purporting to show an electric car cemetery in France.
A similar post has been shared on Facebook here, with a caption that reads, “Come let’s go here. Here is an electric car cemetery in France. Nobody wants to buy a used electric car when the battery is out”.
Verification
A reverse image search, however, reveals that similar images were published by a Chinese state-owned newspaper People’s Daily.
“This is the shared car ‘cemetery’” the Chinese news agency wrote on their website on 25 April 2019, describing the scene as showing 3,000 new energy vehicles. The photo runs alongside a series of others taken from different angles, all parked along the Qiantang River. The caption attributes the images to Chinanews.
A further look into the Facebook post reveals a partial logo on the side of the cars is similar to the logo on the images shared by the Chinese news agency.
The cars in the Facebook post, as well as those provided by Chinanews, possess similar logos, along with white, green and blue paint.
A Google search reveals that the cars were manufactured by China’s Kandi Technologies Group, through a joint venture with Zhejiang Geely Holding Group.
The cars belong to a Hangzhou-based electric car rideshare company, Microcity, a subsidiary of electric car rental company Zhejiang Zuozhongyou Electric Car Service Limited.
“The cars in the photo belonged to Hangzhou Microcity,” the company’s former brand manager, Lou Gaofeng, told Agence France-Presse in an article as seen here.
Verdict
PesaCheck has looked into a Facebook post bearing an image purporting to be of an electric car cemetery in France and finds it to be FALSE.
This story was produced by Africa Uncensored in partnership with Code for Africa with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie.
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