In late May and early June 2025, online users shared a rumor claiming a photo authentically showed a 1930 Russian or Soviet vehicle called "Tarantaika," or "Boneshaker."
For example, users shared this rumor with the caption "1930 Russian/Soviet 'Tarantaika' (Boneshaker)" on Bluesky (archived), Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived) and X (archived). Some commenters under various posts mentioned the alleged vehicle's visible similarities to the Cybertruck, created by Tesla CEO Elon Musk's electric car company.
(@riolindamex.bsky.social/Bluesky)
However, the picture did not show a Russian "Tarantaika" or "Boneshaker." A user created the image — a fake — with an artificial-intelligence (AI) tool. Snopes found no evidence that a Russian vehicle known by those names ever existed.
In October 2024, Snopes examined the same fake image in another fact check, back when users captioned the photo as allegedly showing a "fully restored 1875 chuckwagon." We traced the roots of the picture to Facebook user Joshohoho, who told us he created the image with the generative-AI platform Midjourney.
The user first posted the picture in the Crazed AI and Cursed AI groups on June 24, saying it showed a "Tesla Cybertruck Frontier Edition." They later reposted the image in the Midjourney Official group on June 28 with the caption, "Tesla Cybertruck: Oregon Trail edition."
Searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo and Google failed to locate any information about a historic vehicle with the name "Tarantaika." A search for "Boneshaker" found a stock image of a "Bone-shaker" bicycle from France dating back to 1869, displayed at a March 2011 exhibition in Moscow, Russia, according to the Shutterstock image-licensing website.
For further reading, a previous fact check examined a photo allegedly showing a crash involving two Tesla Cybertrucks.