Cars with a big belly due to high temperatures? A fake news from China

In Chinaphotos are circulating of car that seem pregnant with large bumps on the bodywork. What is happening? Is it true or is it fake news? Let’s examine the facts and listen to the opinion of experts.

“Pregnant Cars” in China, Here’s What’s Going Around on Social Media

In some videos published on social media by the journalist Jennifer Zangyou can see cars parked in the sun. These vehicles, however, have curious protrusions that look very similar to those of an interesting state. This phenomenon – also called “the pregnant car” – is believed to be due to high temperatures which affect all of China.

What they would like to pass off is a scientific explanation behind all this. In some parts of China the temperature reaches 50 degrees due to global warming and After long hours of exposure to sunlight and high temperatures, the film applied to the bodywork begins to swell drastically. But there is strong doubt about the veracity of the phenomenon.

In summarythis phenomenon would have happened for two reasons in particular:

• Poor quality films: Many of the vehicles involved were equipped with inferior protective films. These films, when subjected to extreme temperatures, release gases that build up between the film itself and the bodywork, causing it to bulge.
• High temperatures: this is mainly the reason, namely the strong heat causes the thermal expansion of the materials, contributing to the “belly” effect.

The cause of this phenomenon in this particular continent, in addition to the extreme heat, is the widespread use of protective films. In fact, in China it’s a lot the use of protective films for cars is widespreadboth for aesthetic reasons and to protect the paint from UV rays.

True or false news?

What is happening in China seems completely surreal, but what is seen through the images showing some “pregnant cars”, and which are circulating on the internet and on social media, could be truthful. Jennifer Zanga very well-known journalist in her country, he says on X textual words:

“This is no joke! Cars made in China get pregnant when it gets too hot.”

This is a hoax, this is fake news, here’s why

On the other hand, they are much more sceptical. experts in the sector of Rome, the company “Best Custom Italy” on this very rare if not impossible phenomenon of film swelling.
“What these photos show is a trend (actually already past) in social media (initially in the US, but also in Asia) in which they showed that blowing compressed air under the films could easily detach them. But it turned out to be a hoax and did not work at all on correctly applied films. This time they probably wanted to ride the problem of global warming by showing that high temperatures are actually melting cars. Certainly a much more effective message to raise public awareness”.

Phenomenon impossible even according to the our director, Giovanni Mancini, mechanical engineer: “ These photos always show the same three cars (two Audis and a BMW) with the message “Record heatwave in China causes belly to grow” which first went around social media and then went around the world. It’s simply a hoax and I’ll explain why. Starting from a small bubble, the natural expansion of air with heat cannot produce such a volume as the one shown in the photos. Going from a temperature of 25° at the time the film was applied to a temperature of even 60/70° (exaggerating) the bubble obviously tends to expand but we can say that the volume would never reach the one shown. There is no scientific explanation that can demonstrate such a natural expansion due only to the increase in temperature and originate such protuberances.

The phenomenon was created artfully. How? Using compressed air. Although this technique has already been disproved, one can imagine generating such swellings using compressed air, but shooting it under films applied on a background artfully prepared so that they do not adhere perfectly. Let’s not forget AI which at a photographic level allows miracles to be done. In conclusion, it is not a natural phenomenon that could have been generated with the heat of the sun alone”.