Cars in China allegedly started to swell due to intense heat: funny photos
August 15, 2024
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It turns out that these aren’t the work of artificial intelligence, but real images from the streets of China. But the problem isn’t that Chinese cars are “low-quality”
It turns out that these aren’t the work of artificial intelligence, but real images from the streets of China. But the problem isn’t that Chinese cars are “low-quality” or that someone has wrapped them in vinyl, as some commentators claim.
What happened
Wrapping cars has become a more affordable but less permanent alternative to repainting. It consists of gluing sheets of colored vinyl to the car body. Although air bubbles may remain under the film after gluing, They are never that bigand they couldn’t have accidentally grown this big just by being in the sun.
Bubble cars spotted on the streets of China / Photo: Saint/TikTok
If someone had stuck the film on the interior and then taken the car with the film blown up, it would be clearly visible. It would be too significant a bulge to hide. So that leaves only the option of a slight bulge. But could it expand enough to form a giant bulge? Autopian’s calculations say no.
It expands when the air is hot, but not as much as you can see in the viral photos. Imagine that air bubble is there when the vinyl is installed at 20 degrees Celsius. If you park your car outside on a hot 40 degree day, the air will expand. How much? Only 7 percent.
By the way, the bubbles we see are in the liters. This does not correspond to the expected size of small bubbles that can become unnoticeable after the vinyl is applied. In fact, the publication says that Heat alone cannot cause these swellings.The air does not expand enough to produce such extraordinary results.
Bubble cars spotted on the streets of China / Photo: Saint/TikTok
Another theory
But there is something that creates bubbles in vinyl wrap just like these. Compressed air! In fact, blowing air under the vinyl film is a pretty common way to remove the film. – He writes Autopian.
A typical technique is to place a nozzle containing compressed air under the corner of the wrapper and inflate it to slowly lift the wrapper off the header. Evidence of this can be seen in the comments on Reddit, where “vinyl industry” experts explain and confirm this point.
“As a car wrapper I don’t see how this is realistic, there just isn’t enough air under the wrap to expand that much even with air duct vinyl. But it started trending on social media. User Nedonomicon wrote: “We put high pressure air under the hoods with an air compressor, I think that’s what we’re seeing here.”
Another commenter chimes in: “I don’t even wrap the car but I can tell right away that this is fake. You’d have to inject some kind of gas that expands like crazy to fill that volume. […] Some kid got the air compressor hose stuck under the packaging.”
Bubble cars spotted on the streets of China / Photo: Saint/TikTok
What is the result?
So the problem seems to be that someone deliberately inflated these bubbles by blowing compressed air between the duct tape and the body of the car. This is definitely not a problem with the build quality of the Chinese cars as many commentators have suggested. Especially since two of them are German Audi A3s and one is German Audi A6s.
After all, we do not know exactly what the problem is – whether the owners themselves did it (but for what purpose?), is it a strange prank of street hooligans, or is it a special defect that really has a scientific explanation?
I’m Sandra Torres, a passionate journalist and content creator. My specialty lies in covering the latest gadgets, trends and tech news for Div Bracket. With over 5 years of experience as a professional writer, I have built up an impressive portfolio of published works that showcase my expertise in this field.