The AC Future drivable, self-sustaining home transforms to be larger than your first apartment
The "AC" in AC Future stands for Amy and Cindy, founder Arthur Qin's two daughters. That's just one of the bits of info I gained at the company's CES event in which we got a first look at the new AC Future Ai-TH transformable home. This is yet another nattily appointed answer to the housing crisis we've seen on the 2025 show floor. It comes in three models: a deliverable pod (Ai-THu), a pullable trailer (Ai-THt) and a road-ready EV RV (Ai-THd). Press and prospective buyers got to tour the EV prototype this week (but we had to take our shoes off first).
Amy Skorheim / Engadget
Thanks to pull-out sections at the rear and both sides, the bus-sized RV transforms into a 400-square-foot, one bed, one bath apartment, complete with a living room, kitchen with full-sized fridge, two burner induction range and microwave, along with an uncramped stall shower and washer/dryer in the bathroom. The full HVAC system, paired with high-efficiency insulation keeps the unit temperate.
All that amounts to one heck of a power draw, which AC Future answers with a roof covered in solar panels. I was told all three models of the Ai-TH can generate around 25 kWh of energy in a day. For reference, the average American house uses around 30 kWh daily. The home can also be plugged in if sunlight isn't enough, and there was talk of wind-generation options for customers in cloudy climates.
All models of the Ai-TH will also come equipped with atmospheric water generation that can suck between 13 and 15 gallons of water per day out of thin air. That's much less than the 200 or so gallons American houses use for non-landscaping needs, so the Ai-TH also recycles gray water and, of course, has a holding tank. In theory, these units can act as fully self-sustaining living pods, gathering what's needed from the world around them.
Because this is CES 2025, where the unofficial model is "Stick some AI in it!" there's a whole-home proprietary AI assistant called Futura to turn on your lights, manage your resources and handle other management tasks. There was even a demo set up outside the RV letting people "meet" "her."
At last year’s CES, AC Future, barely two years old at the time, showed off the idea for the Ai-TH. The fully equipped prototype we saw was built in collaboration with Hydra, an automotive design and prototyping studio out of Southern California. Models that go into production will have components coming from a huge range of suppliers; I was told there are three partners lined up for the EV motors alone.
AC Future says this is “aimed at addressing the affordable, sustainable and mobile housing crisis worldwide.” And any talk of addressing the housing crisis has to include some discussion of price, unless we're counting on some trickle-down economics-style solutions. The static base model will start at $98,000, the trailer model will go for $138,000 and up and the drivable version starts at $298,000.
AC Future's COO told me production would begin as soon as they left Vegas (the whole team was at CES) and reservations are open now.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/the-ac-future-drivable-self-sustaining-home-transforms-to-be-larger-than-your-first-apartment-193758718.html?src=rss