The patent filing shows Seres’ plans for an onboard toilet that slides out from the bottom of a passenger’s seat with a push or through voice-activated commands.

The loo will come with a fan and exhaust pipe to channel odours out of the car, according to the filing on China’s intellectual property administration seen by the BBC.

Waste is collected in a tank that has to be emptied manually. The toilet also features a rotating heating element that evaporates urine and dries other waste.

When not in use, the toilet is concealed beneath the seat, making full use of the space inside a car without requiring more room.

  • credo@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Maybe they did it so no one else could? When patent trolls become the true heroes.

    • frongt@lemmy.zip
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      6 days ago

      Yeah companies patent stuff they’re not expecting to actually build all the time.

  • order216@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    An old RR model included a manual toilet too. It didn’t have a tank so it left waste on the road. It wasn’t popular though.

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip
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    6 days ago

    Uhm, excuse me, what is this Panzer?

    Btw, i’ve once read a sci-fi dystopia story, where the few humans left all live naked in some vehicle filled with a hydro- and oilophobic smart, uh, slime? Gum? that can freely deform. You piss, the urine gets directed to a opening. You want to procreate, sperm from a matching partner gets exchanged via their vehicle. Stuff like that.

    Guess they have this as their vision of the future?

    • WanderingThoughts
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      6 days ago

      In “Mother of Storms” by Barn Jones, they had self-driving cars with a built-in toilet for long cross-country trips. I never thought it would actually be built.