We suspect that the recent introduction of the Toilet Bike Neo to be a little (pardon the pun) tongue in cheek. After all, the 250cc 3-wheeled motorcycle with a porcelain throne for a seat comes from the Japanese toilet maker Toto, but the company claims the prototype trike is powered by poo.

Fortunately, it doesn’t require the owner’s personal input for power, although it does in fact run on biogas fuel consisting of fertilized, purified and compressed livestock waste, as well as household wastewater provided by the cities of Kobe and Shikaoi.

Potty talk aside, Toto has been developing the poop-cycle since 2009, and the company could be at the forefront of a clean-vehicle initiative in Japan as well as the U.S.

The U.S. Energy Department's Biofuels Initiative is working to make biomass fuels competitive in cost with gasoline and to replace 30 percent of the current level of gasoline consumption with biofuels by 2030. Given the Obama administration mandate announced this week that automakers must achieve a fleetwide average of 54.5 mpg for new cars and trucks by model year 2025, having poo-powered vehicles on the road soon may not seem so full-moon crazy.

[Source: Autoblog]