It has been claimed that an image of two “car towers” depicts an amazing circular parking facility. Is this real or fake? Today we’ll take a closer look.

The Image is Real but the Description is Misleading.

These “car towers” are real and they are located at the Autostadt (translated “car town”) in Wolfsburg, Germany. The Autostadt is a visitor center next to the Volkswagen factory in that city. The towers are not parking structures per se, but are rather housing for newly-produced Volkswagens. While new cars are parked there, referring to it as a “parking facility” has misled some people into believing it is a public parking area. The Autostadt’s website states:

The two emblems of the Autostadt, the two CarTowers (AutoTürme), can be explored in an air ­conditioned panoramic glass lift. These glazed, high-­rise garages, each housing 400 new vehicles, are the heart of vehicle delivery at the Autostadt. Inside, patented technology helps transport the new Volkswagen vehicles in and out of their parking bays at a speed of two metres per second.

These 200-foot tall glass silos are connected directly to the Volkswagen factory via a 700-meter underground tunnel.  Cars are carried up the towers at 1.5 meters per second. Some European customers have the option of picking up newly-purchased Volkswagens from the Autostadt, which includes entrance to the attraction.

The towers were built in the year 2000 and reportedly receive 1.2 million visitors annually. There are tours which last about 15-20 minutes where visitors are taken through the towers to an observation deck.

Autostadt Video

Reuters published a report on the Autostadt in April 2012. Watch the 2 minute and 40 second video below:

Bottom Line

The image of a circular car tower in which parks are parked is real. It is located in Wolfsburg, Germany and called the Autostadt. It is not a public parking facility, but a tower used by the German car company Volkswagon to store new cars. Visitors can tour the towers in a glass cabin elevator which moves slowly up to an observation deck.

Sources

• Cartower Discovery (Autostadt.de)
• Autostadt (Wikipedia)

Updated December 4, 2015
Originally published June 2013