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
Am I wrong in saying I would totally want this? I’ve had some close calls in LA traffic jams. But with a normal Western toilet seat please. That diagram looks like one of those “squatty potty” contraptions that I’d prefer to avoid.
I’ve actually seen squat pots in Turkey.
Friend of mine taught at a college in China for a semester, he said waste ‘management’ wasn’t really a concern over there. People would just crap in the street. On highways, ‘rest stops’ consist of a concrete trough with foot markings to tell you where to squat, and a slow stream of water just flushes the waste out the back of the building. No privacy at all, just a communal room.
My dad told us about a voyage on a troop transport ship during WW2 with similar facilities for the “passengers”. Being British troops, the done thing was to ball up some paper, float it on the liquids in the trough, then set light to it. The rolling of the ship would send the flaming mass backwards and forwards under the soldiers’ exposed nether parts; much hilarity ensued.
Just need a credit card:
https://www.amazon.com/TRELINO-Composting-Portable-Odorless-Capacity/dp/B0CKHXRV82/ref=sr_1_9?crid=1TTOSIYHDLRAM&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.fZz_G91LYapMOwBz6lF5zRz-D7lt8xvNbFRSXmQ2uCEwqkI8oDefWHaVlIfb_sthkJtXITlww4yLEwQcbA-W8iuhHv68TyQA01DStvPhlYi3uUxxc81QnTgOj7O7VNz16lPjiaDJyd1VFicT6OqppXpjNMipne6hk39W0FazsCW3ZQRqA5TQieCr-kw95Xc3rwnc05flU9yr9X4HYhBwVxCvxuqU76XhimAz9yJRRIy3tXzFcc2J0Dom40iBKmK6-XwwIr-VY24GLJ4BtZwSZHOZPJa0s3oEF6iCQuRI-X4.xcxkJLwrgJJ8rraB0gBmgB8u8UqpogXVNiDwE3w6exE&dib_tag=se&keywords=trelino&qid=1776527178&sprefix=trelino%2Caps%2C340&sr=8-9&th=1
This squat toilet will require that the sunroof be fully open, and the cruise control or parking brake engaged, before operating.
The plan to put us all in Wall-E chairs is indeed coming along nicely.
Undercoating by Temu.
If you’re not allowed to sh!t on the tour bus, you should NEVER sh!t in the car.
From the schematic I can only assume that the wiping aspect is done old school, just using your bare left hand? I don’t seem to see any toilet paper roll hanger on there. With no water to wash your wiping hand I hope these only come with an automatic transmission so you can drive one handed.
Fun fact people did use their left hand for wiping and their right hand for eating. This is where the concept of shaking hands with your right hand became a thing and left handed people were suspect. I mean you shake hands with someone and when you are done your hand is covered with their poop, it doesn’t bode well for the friendship.
A lot of Asia doesn’t use toilet paper. Cleaning is handled by water – either bidets or a lota. Hard to go back to paper when you have experienced a clean bottom.
A serviceable portable bidet can be made from a plastic water bottle with a hole drilled in the cap.
For 100 US dollars Toto (the toilet company, not the band) will sell you a rechargeable portable bidet! With a folding spray tip and a tiny water tank. Whole thing folds into the size of a water bottle. Must be a lifesaver for Japanese traveling overseas.
I’ve just come back from Japan. The first thing I thought when I saw this article was “it’d better have a water jet back there or I’m out.”
I like the idea of having to regularly fill up your “bidet tank.” Hopefully they can distill the urine as a sort of regen
I’d be happy with screen wash.
Hopefully not manufactured by Kärcher.
I have heard public toilets don’t have it or it gets stolen or you pay for it but the sheet? I am not sure as I have never been there.
I didn’t see the requirements for a bidet in the car commode schematics
Depends on the country. Many have a handheld sprayer on a hose similar to what you would find in a kitchen sink. As others have mentioned above there are portable bidets to buy or bidet cabs for disposable water bottles.
Public toilets don’t have toilet paper because the local population does not use it. Wiping one’s bottom with dry paper is not considered hygienic.
One of many examples of a portable option:
https://www.amazon.com/CuloClean-Portable-Compatible-Discreet-ecological/dp/B07L448T4K?th=1
I installed bidets at home after our first trip to Europe, they were everywhere in Italy. Just an add on sprayer and a tee fitting for the tank supply.
Depending on what I have eaten I have carpet bombed a commode to the degree a dozen flushings didn’t clear the Bowl. I would not want to rely on a gentle trickle or a fire hose blast to clean my rectum.
Rectum hell it damn near killed me.
I used to have two Cadillac’s, but my old lady rectum both.
Bidets are a sign of civilization, IMHO.
My new house is getting proper Japanese toilets. Money well spent even if the add-on ones I have currently are adequate.
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.
Of the three, diesel exhaust is the coldest I’m pretty sure. Please correct me if I’m wrong but I expect diesel at a sustainable full power to be 800-1100f, gas to be about 800f to 1800f, and dieselish powered turbines to be 800f to 2500f. Am I wrong?
I would have thought so too in a normally application. But remembered some of capstones claims. I suppose if you think in terms of btu values it makes sense.
Diesel egt normally under 1300f with a low or maybe 500f . Regen normally around 1100 to 1200f.
Jp8 turbine exhaust might be around 1100f to 1300f .
Capstone says their natural gas turbine exhaust temp is 535f using any type of methane or lpg.
Some of the marine gas turbines run about 1000f. HFO turbine might be more between 1300f and 1700f ? I recall someone telling me a experimental diesel turbine in a fire truck had 2000f to 2500f exhaust. No idea if that’s accurate. I know it could burn paint 15 feet away.
Use the urea from the urine to reduce emissions from the diesel.
For sure it seems to be spray and pray anyway. Though I think on average it’s only 2% by volume.
VW could have avoided the whole dieselgate scandal by setting up a pee trough leading to the exhaust.
You might be on to something. Given they got outed by lab in WV the users of the vehicle they were testing probably have high urea content from all the mountain dew they drink. At the very least would have made it harder for the blind squirrel to find the nut.
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.
All public toilets should have signal jammers in them.
Agreed. It would also eliminate the people doing a teams call from the urinal next to me. I find it crazy all the people talking on a call while doing their business in the bathroom.
My man, tell them you will be right back and hang up. It can’t be that important.
I always do a couple courtesy flushes when someone in the restroom is on their cell phone
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.
I drive a lot and there are truck pull offs on the Interstates (with Porta Johns) every 1/2 hour reliably in most regions I travel.
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.
Car defecation station? Would that make the car a station wagon?
Lol
That’s It! You’re out of the car pool!
Or is it the car Poo L?
I swear, it was just a Baby Ruth!
Oh Henry…
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.
And with modern medicine hatving explosive diarrhea as a side effect I’m not sure if the tiny air vent is going to be able to remove the odor but I bet it acts like a blender with the top off when the shit hits the fan.
You act like you’d be the only one using this. The smell would be coming from everywhere, hence nowhere.
I mean do they have one of these under every seat?
The ultimate car for the Shitbox Showdown.
Title sponsor opportunity?
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.
Or airplanes, if you pee in the sink. The toilet contents go into a holding tank but the sink drain goes overboard.
Airplane toilets are disgusting enough, and now I’ve got the concept of people peeing in the sink to deal with.
So thanks, you’ve saving me a lot of long trips in the future.
I get unreasonably happy when someone else knows about Red Dwarf lol.
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.
You can say that again! (Couldn’t help myself, since you somehow posted that twice. Computer error, I suppose.)
Your membership doos.
“process you may have used yourself when boiling away urine on an electric stove.”
…I can’t say I have done that before.
If you’ve got a better way to get phosphorus, I’d like to hear it.
Using an induction stove.
Just be careful to pee in the urine pot and not the spaghetti pot where you are making shower spaghetti, otherwise you get golden shower spaghetti.
You must not be Euro”pean” Ha ha
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!
Sounds like Citroën should bring back the DS (maybe rebranded Déuce instead of Déesse); hydropneumatic suspension for the win!
Yeah, I was scrolling down to see if anyone else caught this: It’s a squatting toilet common in China. It’s definitely not a style you want to use while the car is in motion.
There’s no reason you couldn’t sit on it. It’s a hybrid!
I tend to “sit and think” (e.g doom scroll) when I’m on the can. My butt would end up looking like I told a teacher in private school to “F- off” (again).
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.
Yeah your passengers wouldn’t even notice. (/s)