FALSE: This video is not of electric buses on fire
The video is from 2021 and is of blazing buses at an industrial complex in Compton, US. The fire spread from an adjacent pallet yard and had nothing to do with an EV malfunction.
This Facebook post with a video reportedly of electric buses burning is FALSE.
The post reads: “Kamala Harris: The propensity for electric buses to burst into flames without warning is a small price to pay for having USB outlets next to every seat.”
Alongside the burning buses, is an address by United States (US) Vice President Kamala Harris. The VP spoke in favour of electric vehicles (EVs), saying: “No exhaust, no diesel smell. The bus has Wi-Fi and even USB outlets next to every seat. I mean come on, imagine you can charge your phone on your way home from work. That’s good stuff.”
Harris was speaking at New Flyer of America, the transit bus manufacturer in St. Cloud, Minnesota, on 9 February 2023. On display were zero-emission innovation and expertise.
From minute 3:36 of the longer version of the address, Harris says: “The majority of our nation’s buses run on diesel fuel. Well here’s the thing, diesel exhaust is a poison…Diesel exhaust is also a greenhouse gas. Every year gas powered buses add millions of tonnes of pollution to our atmosphere, which further accelerates climate crisis.”
EVs have been lauded as key to decarbonising road transport, a sector that accounts for 16 per cent of global emissions. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), about 2 billion EVs need to be on the road by 2050 for the world to hit net zero.
A reverse image search of a screenshot from the video in the claim on Yandex established that the incident dates to 2021 and there is no evidence EVs were involved.
ABC7 reported on the incident on 26 February 2021, as being a fire at an industrial complex in Compton, United States. The fire reportedly spread from an adjacent pallet yard and to the bus yard and a mattress warehouse. There is also no mention of the buses in question being electric.
The video headline reads: “Massive fire at Compton industrial complex rips through structures, buses | ABC7”. KTLA 5 also reported the event, hours after the flames were extinguished.
PesaCheck has looked into the Facebook post with a video reportedly of electric buses on fire and finds it to be FALSE.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
This fact-check was written by PesaCheck fact-checker Peris Gachahi and edited by PesaCheck senior copy editor Cédrick Irakoze and acting chief copy editor Francis Mwaniki.
The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck’s managing editor Doreen Wainainah.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape the government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water/sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.
PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.
