It's hard to live without a toilet, but it is also hard to squeeze one into such a small space without some compromises.
Readers often complain when we show fossil fuel powered
camper vans, particularly from a certain German company that sells Westfalia
conversions. However, travelling across the country in one remains a fantasy of
this TreeHugger, and these vans are remarkable examples of really efficient
design for small spaces.
And while Sami has noted that electric
vans are coming down the road soon, if you want any significant range,
right now we are still pretty much stuck with gas or diesel. I really liked
the VW
California Camper that we showed recently, but it had one fundamental
problem: It lacked a toilet.
Now Westfalia and Ford have
introduced the Nugget Plus, built on a Ford Transit platform. It sleeps four,
with a double bed in that ugly high roof and another double bed that folds out
over the dining area. But most importantly, it has a toilet built in at the
back of the bus.
© Ford/ toilet is out in the open area
The toilet placement takes a bit of getting used to; you
have some privacy when it is in use because of a retractable screen that
provides visual but not too much acoustic privacy, but when it is not in use,
it is out in the open, essentially in the kitchen area.
© Ford/ Sink folds down
Then there is a fold-down sink on the other side of the van. C.C. Weiss
of New Atlas explains:
After spending a few minutes or more on a toilet bumping,
splishing and sploshing in rhythm with the rolling wheels below, the first
thing you're sure to want to do is wash your hands. With no room for a sink
inside the toilet room, Westfalia did the next best thing in adding a small
drop-down sink directly across from the bathroom on the edge of the kitchen counter.
The extra sink serves as a more sanitary solution versus bathroom goers having
to beeline for the kitchen sink.
© Ford Nugget with privacy screen closed
While a toilet is a great convenience, surely one could pull
over for a few minutes instead of splishing and sploshing, but whatever. Just
having a toilet is a great convenience, even if that screen is not sound and
smell proof.
It’s too bad someone couldn’t come up with a modern version
of David
Fergusson’s 1948 bathroom, where both the toilet and the sink folded up
into the wall, leaving the space for a shower stall. Then nobody would have to
look at the toilet or the sink when they weren’t needed.
The Nugget is powered by a 129- and 168-hp 2.0-liter EcoBlue
Euro 6 diesel engine, with choice of manual or automatic transmission. It comes
with two 95-Ah AGM batteries and two 42 litre fresh and waste water tanks. CO2
emissions while driving are 183 - 169 g / km, or at 100 km/hr, 18.3 kg per
hour; Interestingly, the
average American couple emits 108 kg of CO2 per day between driving
and living, so trading in your house and your car for a diesel powered van
might actually lower your footprint, as I continue to search for a TreeHugger
justification for this.
© Ford/ Westfalia
Compared to the California, it is more reasonably priced at
about US$ 72,500, about the price of a condo parking space in New York or
Toronto these days. Find a spot with a high ceiling and you could live in it.
That’s also less money than many of the tiny
houses Kim has been showing lately, and this one actually moves itself.
I look forward to when these are electric and self-driving,
where you can go to bed in one place and wake up in another. It might make a
lot of our fixed and immobile real estate superfluous.
source: https://www.treehugger.com/tiny-houses/ford-transit-camper-van-has-everything-you-need-including-toilet.html
by Lloyd Alter
http://www.thisoldtoilet.com
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