I’m not sure if you’re like me and gauge the overall progress of a society based on the variety and number of places one can comfortably take a long, comfortable dump, but if so, then I suspect you’ve seen the news about how Chinese carmaker Seres has patented a fairly revolutionary new in-car toilet system. As a dedicated and lifelong defecator ever since that first production of the meconium, I laud this innovation while simultaneously realizing that it’s a wake-up call for an increasingly vast Car Pooping Gap with China.
Seres Auto was founded in 2016 and was allied with Huawei for a time, but that partnership ended. The company currently builds two EVs, the Seres 5 and Seres 7, either of which can currently be shat in, but just in the same way one can shit in any car, and contain no specialized systems for human waste management or removal.
This patent suggests a very different future for car-shitters, and the system appears quite well-considered and reflects some clever new thinking in the field. The current state of the art for in-vehicle urine and fecal management systems is primarily focused on the RV market, where those vehicles have far greater resources for usable toilet areas and storage tanks for the waste. In a conventional passenger car, those sorts of luxuries cannot be counted upon.
An in-car toilet needs to take up as little space as possible, both for the active toilet hardware and the waste storage. Seres’ patent, number B60R15/04, addresses these issues with some bold ideas from inventors that include Wang Pengcheng, Zheng Yaokai, Ye Xiaojun, Lin Zhenting, and Feng Tao; some of you may be familiar with their previous work in car-pooping.
The Seres patent describes a system where the toilet assembly is mounted to a sliding track system, allowing it to be pulled out from under the seat when needed, and pushed back when one’s foul business is done.
I would think, based on the pictures that include a drain pipe-looking assembly, that it is in fact the seat that pushes back and away, exposing the toilet for use.
The tracks for the seat seem to be concealed under the toilet seat itself; I expect the seat itself would intrude into the rear seat area, so I suppose whoever may be seated behind you would have to move should you decide to relieve yourself. Could this setup work for a second-row seat? I suppose as long as there is room behind the seat, as in a van, minivan, or perhaps an SUV or wagon?
The patent also notes that a ventilation system will attempt to move odors and miasmas outside of the car, and a heating element system will evaporate urine and dry out potentially moist poops. This is similar to RV-based waste-cooking systems like we’ve written about before that used the exhaust heat of the RV’s engine to incinerate waste.
The difference here is that Seres vehicles are electric, so any waste-heating would have to be handled via electric heating systems, similar to the process you may have used yourself when boiling away urine on an electric stove.
One aspect of Seres’ in-car toilet system that I don’t think makes much sense is that there is a “voice activation” component. I’m not entirely clear how it works, but if you have to verbally give commands like “ACTIVATE TOILET” or “FLUSH TOILET,” then it’s going to completely destroy any chance of being able to use such a system clandestinely in a bathroom emergency situation while others are in the car.
If they would just have some discreet buttons for the toilet, you could play it off like you were just adjusting your seat and making yourself a bit more comfortable by lowering your pants as you then sweatily and determinedly void the contents of your colon into the in-car toilet, hiding your grunts and plopping sounds by just cranking up the music to near-deafening levels.
Your white-knuckled hands on the steering wheel and grimaces of pain from the presumably harrowing emergency pooping process could just be explained away by the fact that you’re trying to really focus on driving.
But no, that’s all ruined if you have to verbally announce OPEN TOILET or whatever, because then everyone in the car will probably demand that you pull over and at least let them get the hell out of the car before you do that, dear lord, what are you thinking and all that. Candy-asses.
Also, I don’t have any evidence that this would fit the driver’s seat.
Interestingly, I’ve written about a passenger car with an in-seat toilet system before, for The Old Site. That car was a customized 1954 Rolls-Royce that had a toilet set into the rear seat, under the rear cushion:
This was a comparatively simple system, as the flush mechanism was just a means to dump the wastes under the bottom of the car onto the road or parking lot.
We’ve come a long way since then, clearly, though mass acceptance of in-car pooping and peeing systems still remains elusive. But maybe now this announcement of Chinese advances in in-car crapping will finally kick-start a real In-Car-Pooping Race, and get our brave and innovative automakers off their asses and help us get wastes out of our asses while in our cars.
We cannot abide a Car Toilet Gap! We must catch up, surpass, and succeed! Soon, we’ll all be pooping in our cars! For victory!
Top graphic image: USPTO; Seres
This is one area a turbine powered or even a diesel powered vehicle might have an advantage. Use the super heated exhaust to burn all the waste no smell no bio hazard just ash. Maybe an incinerator toliet powered by the battery could work well enough. With the urine separator you often see it could work well enough of course with a diesel you could just inject that in to the exhaust and let it vaporize. Perhaps the actual answer is something like a plasma cutter. But a plasma generator in some kind of ceramic or carbon container. Just burn it all quickly.
One of my favorite features of so many “solo van builds ” is the toliet situation. Half the time it’s a bucket and saw dust or chemical toliet under what they are calling their kitchen or under their bed. Chinese innovation in this area is exactly what they need. They can go right to temu or if they have some sense vevor.
It seems fairly commonplace, when you buy a used car, to find things from the previous owner. Sometimes it’s harmless things like sunglasses, other times, it’s gross stuff like boogers or unidentifiable stains.
I cannot even imagine the horror of buying a used car with a used toilet inside.
“I’m not sure if you’re like me and gauge the overall progress of a society based on the variety and number of places one can comfortably take a long, comfortable dump,”
Better have some strong legs and flexible hamstrings if you are going to take long dumps while squatting over an asian toilet.
Maybe we should make a switch to cut down the average time man spends loudly watching tik-tok video in the airport john while there is a line out the door.
i think they’re running out of new ideas for cars. this is a shitty idea lol.
ok, like maybe it makes sense if you’re a rushed trucker and there’s no stop within the next 2 hours and you just ate some taco bell, but in a passenger car? what the actual fuck.
In car defecation station? Ugh. Can you imagine buying a used car with one of these? Gack! Yet another good reason for banning Chinese cars from the US.
That’s It! You’re out of the car pool!
In-Car-Pooping Arena = worst sports venue corporate sponsor naming agreement ever.
If there’s a single thing I have never dreamt of wanting in my car, it’s an under-seat toilet.
Yup, so that everyone you drive or get stuck in traffic by can get a good whiff of your turds. Brilliant. I’m happy to give that “invention” to the Chinese.
The ultimate car for the Shitbox Showdown.
The simplest way to dispose of the toilet contents would be to do like the trains in India do: dump it out in the open. Imagine piles of crap being left upon America’s great interstate highway system, just as India does onto its railroad tracks!
I mention this because when I was a kid, I knew someone whose father had a Chevrolet Bel Aire with a hole cut into the rear specifically for that purpose. While it was only sized for excretion of urine, any small kid riding in the back could simply empty themselves into the hole, only for it to fall onto the road wherever. It reduced the need for stops during long drives, the disadvantage being that one would have to be unbuckled from their seatbelt to use it.
Have you ever seen Red Dwarf?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IflL8XMdbqQ
No longer science fiction!
That’s basically how restrooms on trains in the U.S. work. There is a tank for solids, but once it’s full, the liquids pour out the top onto the track.
Jason, if you’re ever in New England stop by the Lars Anderson Auto Museum.
Most visitors are enamored by the amazing collection of vehicles housed in a beautiful Gilded Age carriage house, but for connoisseurs of the stool, take a closer look at their 1906 Charron, Girardot, and Voigt (CGV).
https://youtu.be/miKBJkhS8Gk?si=I49p7kHgYC6ApOHZ&t=91
Wonder how long it takes the Muskatoon to combine this and make FSDuece?
It’s the real reason roaster development has stalled. Open air dual shitters.
I’ve never been happier to say my membership dues are going to shit.
I’ve never been happier to say my membership dues are going to shit.
“process you may have used yourself when boiling away urine on an electric stove.”
…I can’t say I have done that before.
My favorite bit is that this isn’t a toilet you sit on. It’s one you squat on. It would never work on American roads. With our frost heaves, you would have to have exceptional balance to stay in that position.
Which leads to some really funny (to me) potential tic-toc videos.
Dang, I think you’re right, that is a squat toilet!
Although not the best article ever posted on the Autopian, this is definitely number 2.
Today the word “shitty” is doing double duty (ha! Doody) as both a qualitative and categorical descriptor. As in, this is a shitty idea.
Owing to the difficult bending/driving/reaching combination such duties (ha! again) entail, will the system obviate wiping with a built in bidet? Because if not, ew.
One of my first car memories, hell memory period was that my parents would stop at a restaurant/car museum on the way to visit their family. Every summer we would make the drive and we stopped there to see the cars and have lunch.
THE car that I loved was an old school limo. I think it was a Towncar, where the driver got to sit outside and the passengers got to be in luxury. This car had a seat that had a removable cushion that you could crap in.
I was young enough that the idea of being able to do your business without having to stop the car was the ultimate in luxury. I remember as I got older and more potty trained I was less impressed, but it is the first car I fell in love with.
Takes “Dude roll down the window!!” to a whole new level
I think the rules should be that you can’t lock the windows from rolling down from the side with the crapper.