As photos of a futuristic transit bus travelling on a test track in northern China have gone viral, China's state and local media have quickly dismissed it as a publicity stunt.
The high Transit Elevated Bus (TEB-1), also known as a straddling bus, was seen undergoing a road test in Qinhuangdao, Hebei province on Tuesday, just months after its design was unveiled earlier this year.
Qinhuangdao city officials told the state-run People's Daily newspaper that they were not aware of the so-called test.
Although the idea sounds superb, almost too good to be realistic, many questions still need to be answered about the feasibility of the straddling bus, the People's Daily reported on Thursday.
Chinese online news outlet Sohu has also criticized the test as a "money-raising gimmick" in the name of the local government.
The TEB has also come under scrutiny for an unexpected halt during its test run, which was suspected of being caused by a technical glitch.
The Global Times newspaper has cited a private source as saying the bus was a raw model and did not feature any advanced technology.
A spokesperson at TEB Technology Development Company, the firm behind the straddling bus project, told the People's Daily that the test was an "internal testing" procedure and that part of the TEB-1 still needs to be assembled.
"[There's] least one more week ahead for the [actual] road test," the spokesman said.
Capable of carrying up to 300 passengers, the 4.8 meter-high TEB-1 features a passenger compartment that rises far above the ground to allow cars to pass underneath it. The design, which aimed to solve the traffic problems plaguing many Chinese cities, was first raised in 2010 and a short demonstration video shown at Beijing's 19th International High-Tech Expo in May this year.
Song Youzhou, the TEB's chief designer, said prototypes of the straddling bus are being built and that five cities - Nanyang, Qinhuangdao, Shenyang, Tianjin, and Zhoukou - have signed contracts with TEB Technology Development Company for pilot projects.