{"id":535648,"date":"2026-04-17T08:35:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T08:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/535648\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T08:35:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T08:35:08","slug":"chinese-carmaker-seres-patents-voice-controlled-in-vehicle-toilet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/535648\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese carmaker Seres patents voice-controlled “in-vehicle toilet”"},"content":{"rendered":"

In-vehicle toilets are rare – mostly found in long-distance coaches – but are not unheard of in cars.<\/p>\n

In the 1950s, a special version of a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith included an in-built television set and a toilet beneath the passenger seat, according to auction house Sotheby’s, external<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Seres, along with its subsidiary brand Aito, are known for making electric sport utility vehicles – larger cars that stand taller off the ground and have more cargo space.<\/p>\n

Most of the company’s cars are sold in mainland China, though Seres has also expanded to Europe, the Middle East and Africa.<\/p>\n

With dozens of competing brands, China’s EV market has become heavily saturated<\/a> leading to a costly price war that has chipped away at companies’ profits.<\/p>\n

Seres is one of a few Chinese EV companies that have turned a profit, including world-leading BYD<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Many analysts have sounded the alarm that a vast number of Chinese EV firms are at risk of collapse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In-vehicle toilets are rare – mostly found in long-distance coaches – but are not unheard of in cars.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-535648","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-gb","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}