Outdoors

2023 Living Vehicle off-grid trailer now makes water out of thin air

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With newly available options, the 2023 Living Vehicle is more ready to work and live remotely
Living Vehicle
With a dry weight that starts at 12,000 lb and rises from there, the Living Vehicle is a significant load that requires a capable truck
Living Vehicle
Finding camp with the 2023 Living Vehicle
Living Vehicle
The Living Vehicle finds a middle ground between a tiny home and a camping trailer ... live in it full-time or use it for travel and recreation
Living Vehicle
With newly available options, the 2023 Living Vehicle is more ready to work and live remotely
Living Vehicle
The Living Vehicle helps nomads take advantage of the great outdoors with its fold-away front porch
Living Vehicle
The Living Vehicle's kitchen comes equipped like a home kitchen, with standard and available features like a full-size fridge, range with oven, dishwasher and microwave
Living Vehicle
Living Vehicle builds with on/off-road travel and four-season living in mind, planting its trailer on a steel-reinforced aluminum chassis
Living Vehicle
With the available Watergen system, the Living Vehicle can keep supplying the taps with clean water, even when it's miles away from the nearest water supply infrastructure
Living Vehicle
The Living Vehicle rear dining lounge turns into a single-queen or or optional double-bunk room
Living Vehicle
Dining mode
Living Vehicle
Distracting the dog with a great view while starting the bathing process
Living Vehicle
Living Vehicle bathroom
Living Vehicle
Front master suite
Living Vehicle
The 2023 Living Vehicle mores closer to full off-grid autonomy and self-sufficiency
Living Vehicle
Another new Living Vehicle option, the Creative Suite is a powerful mobile office neatly integrated into the master bedroom — it folds away under the queen bed and easily lifts into action
Living Vehicle
Enjoy a full-blown office experience with the Creative Studio package
Living Vehicle
Developing the custom Water Gen system for the Living Vehicle
Living Vehicle
Testing out the H2O
Living Vehicle
Living Vehicle hasn't detailed the interface, but it looks like the Watergen system will include a digital monitoring component
Living Vehicle
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With more available battery power than some electric vehicles, up to 3,400 watts of deployable solar charging and a list of appliances that reads like a luxury vacation home, the Living Vehicle is already one of the most capable off-grid trailers money can buy. For model year 2023, it's loading up on even more self-sufficiency, adding an optional water generator that makes clean drinking water from ambient humidity, even in the desert. Now that it's able to develop both electric power and clean water, the Living Vehicle is ready to ramble even farther from civilization.

The key to Living Vehicle's latest off-grid superpower is the Watergen atmospheric water generator (AWG). Originally a military-grade technology, Watergen's AWG system pulls atmospheric moisture in with a fan, extracts it via condensation, runs it through a multi-step filtration and purification process, and dispenses clean water as conveniently as a water cooler or tap.

We previously saw Watergen's mobile water-generation tech on a concept car and concept overland truck, but Living Vehicle's system represents the first production-vehicle application of a Watergen RV system. Unlike the OnBoard system Watergen is developing as a more general RV solution, the proprietary system custom-developed for the Living Vehicle does not have a roof intake, which could interfere with the trailer's roof-mounted solar array. Instead, it pulls air in through a wall vent.

The Watergen AWG system is further integrated with the Living Vehicle's existing hardware, running off the solar-connected battery system and delivering excess water into the 379-L onboard fresh water tank. It can generate up to 19 liters of water a day, plenty for a family drinking 2 to 4 liters per person each day (the Living Vehicle sleeps up to six people). Because Watergen's system automatically filters and purifies, the water can be used for drinking and cooking without further treatment at the tap.

With the available Watergen system, the Living Vehicle can keep supplying the taps with clean water, even when it's miles away from the nearest water supply infrastructure
Living Vehicle

It's not uncommon for off-grid campers or boats to include water "making" capabilities. Such systems usually take the form of intakes that pull water in from a natural lake or stream before purifying it to a potable standard. Systems designed to process salt water also desalinate the water. Rugged off-road/grid RVs like the Bruder EXP-6 trailer and Bliss Mobil truckable expedition module have such options.

In contrast, Watergen's system uses moisture that's virtually omnipresent everywhere you go, promising a higher level of convenience and capability. Users no longer have to track down an existing water source and can instead harvest water wherever they camp or homestead. Watergen's system does require humidity levels of 20 percent or more, but even the driest cities in the US have an average humidity of 30+ percent (though it does drop below 20 percent at times during the year).

Distracting the dog with a great view while starting the bathing process
Living Vehicle

The Watergen AWG joins the recently announced Apple-powered Creative Studio remote office package on the 2023 Living Vehicle's options list. The company tells us the Watergen system will cost US$25,995, and, as we previously reported, the Creative Studio will tack on $23,995. That's a pretty quick $50K if you want the very latest in off-grid living and telecommuting.

The base price for the Living Vehicle itself rises to $339,995 for 2023. This week's announcement does not mention any other major changes for the new model year.

The Living Vehicle's kitchen comes equipped like a home kitchen, with standard and available features like a full-size fridge, range with oven, dishwasher and microwave
Living Vehicle

The wood-free all-aluminum Living Vehicle trailer brings a spacious layout with fold-out front porch, queen-bed master suite (convertible to the creative studio when so equipped), dining lounge/second queen bedroom, spa bathroom, and kitchen fully stocked with removable island, 368-L refrigerator, microwave, and available dishwasher and oven.

The Core base model brings 1,320 watts of solar, while the most powerful Pro-ev variant packs 3,400 watts and 240-V Level 2 EV charging capabilities. Battery capacity ranges between 14.4 kWh and 57.6 kWh, while package-matched inverters size between 5 and 20 kW. A 5.5-kW propane generator with auto transfer is available as an optional backup.

Each trailer is custom-built to order, and Living Vehicle currently estimates lead time at 10 to 12 months.

The four-minute video introduction runs a little longer than it needs to, but it does a nice job of showing more detail on how the Watergen system works and integrates with the Living Vehicle.

Source: Living Vehicle

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7 comments
Tommo
Hmmmm, no mention at all of how many litres per hour/day it can produce.
White Rabbit
@Tommo...
Did you skip Paragraph 4?
"It can generate up to 19 liters of water a day, plenty for a family drinking 2 to 4 liters per person each day (the Living Vehicle sleeps up to six people)."
Steve7734
I'm really interested in how these technologies can be scaled up to supply households. It would be wonderful to have distributed water generation
paul314
"extracts it with condensation" sounds pretty much like a standard basement dehumidifier. Effective, but (like air conditioners and refrigerators) nontrivial energy costs associated. It would be great if they could incorporate some of the newer water-harvesting technologies, but at this price point it seems like mostly fluff anyway.
CAVUMark
Very cool. Now do you think I can win Powerball?
CarolynFarstrider
A person actually needs about 20litres per day even to manage a modestly civilised life - cooking, hand washing etc. even with nothing for toilets or clothes washing. This is what people without access to running water will carry from a borehole.
oldpistachio
Can you safely drink the condensate an air conditioner produces?