There’s a rumor going around the internet. It started when a Redditor posted a satellite photo of a massive parking lot. The title: “Thousands of Audi cars abandoned in the Mojave Desert after cheating emissions tests.” Now, news outlets are discussing the Volkswagen dieselgate cars in the California desert. The only problem? They’ve been gone for years.

Thousands of Audi cars abandoned in the Mojave Dessert after cheating emissons tests
byu/IndicationBrief5950 ininterestingasfuck

In the above photo, you can clearly see rows of cars parked in the desert. The jumbo jet next door gives you an idea just how large the lot is. It’s no wonder the dramatic photo got 79,000 likes and more than 2,000 comments. But the top comment thread does an excellent job of getting to the bottom of things.

Reddit solves the Volkswagen/Audi desert mystery

One Redditor posted a link to the Google Earth timeline function. Then they explained, “They were there for sometime between June 2017 and October 2020,” but they concluded, “The cars aren’t there anymore.”

Sure enough, you can check the satellite photo website for yourself. When you set the view to any month between 2017 and 2020, you’ll see the dieselgate cars stored. But after 2020, they are gone.

“Dieselgate” is the pop culture name for the 2015 scandal in which Volkswagen Group was caught cheating on U.S. emissions tests. In the resulting settlement, VW had to buy back 300,000 vehicles. Many ended up parked in the desert in Victorville, California.

In 2018, the automaker said, “These vehicles are being stored on an interim basis and routinely maintained in a manner to ensure their long-term operability and quality, so that they may be returned to commerce or exported once U.S. regulators approve appropriate emissions modifications.”

The Southern California Logistics Airport from the viral photo was one of 37 secure storage facilities, according to the Economic Times. But over the years VW repaired and sold at least 13,000 vehicles and scrapped at least 28,000. Satellite photos from 2025 show the parking lot empty and a new building standing where the rows of thousands of diesel VWs and Audis once waited.