Some social media users are claiming that fleets of electric scooters are being abandoned due to the high cost of replacing or safely disposing of their batteries.
A Nov. 30 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) features a screenshot of a tweet that includes an image of hundreds of seemingly abandoned yellow scooter bikes.
"Due to the batteries being so expensive to replace, electric scooters are abandoned because disposing of them any other way is dangerous and expensive," reads the caption of the screenshotted tweet.
The image in the tweet is a screengrab of a Nov. 7 TikTok video that shows a broader view with thousands of abandoned scooters.
Other versions of the claim have spread widely on Twitter.
But the claim is false.
The "e-scooters" pictured in the posts are actually a model of electric bike made by the Chinese company Meituan and are part of the company's ride-sharing business, according to the South China Morning Post. News reports from 2018 show the company abandoned the initiative due to a lack of demand for ride-share services in China, not the cost of replacing or safely disposing of the batteries.
Other ride-sharing companies have similarly abandoned fleets of bikes and electric vehicles due to a lack of demand, in what some news outlets called China's "failed share-cycle scheme."
USA TODAY reached out to the social media users who shared the claim for comment.
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