Skip to Content

Care for Home Solar Panels with Your Honda?

Honda signs on installer SolarCity to offer new car buyers an option to have home solar panels financed by Honda.
February 20, 2013

When shopping for a new Honda or Acura, the salesperson may have a special offer for your house:  solar panels, no money down.  

American Honda Motor and SolarCity today announced the creation of a $65 million investment fund to finance installation of rooftop solar panels. Honda and Acura dealerships in the 14 states where SolarCity operates can take advantage of the offering.

It may sounds like an odd pairing, but it could be a sign of things to come in residential solar power in the U.S. Rather than buy panels, more than half of solar customers opt for third-party financing in the states where it’s available, according at a recent report by GTM Research. 

Rather than purchase panels, consumers either buy the power they produce or pay a monthly lease. The installer owns the panels and takes advantage of renewable energy incentives, such as federal and state tax credits. For consumers, it’s compelling because contracts are typically structured to lower monthly electricity bills.

Financing has fueled rapid growth in residential and commercial solar over the past few years. Installer SolarCity, which has a software system for rapidly generating a bid and system design, went public earlier late last year. (See, SolarCity IPO Tests Business Model Innovation in Energy.) 

Honda, which expects to sign on thousands of joint customers, entered into the partnership with SolarCity to burnish its image with environmentally conscious consumers. It says they will explore the possibility of having electric car chargers installed in homes through SolarCity to power Honda’s plug-in hybrid Accord or Fit EV. 

For its part, SolarCity has access to more capital and sales leads. 

Typically, solar installers that offer financing get money from banks, who earn a return on the equity they put up. But the financing model creates the opportunity for different types of companies to offer solar installation, either themselves or through partnerships such as this one.

Home security and automation company Vivint has been offering solar installation and financing, through a partnership with Clear Power Finance. A startup company called OneRoof Energy offers solar power as an option to customers who need a new roof. Meanwhile, Ford electric vehicle buyers can also acquire solar panels from SunPower at a discount.

Obviously, there’s a limit to the number of companies able to commit tens of millions of dollars to solar financing, as Honda and SolarCity have done. But it shows that innovative business models can drive adoption of residential solar. 

Keep Reading

Most Popular

Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.

And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.

OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora

The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.

Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.

Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.

This baby with a head camera helped teach an AI how kids learn language

A neural network trained on the experiences of a single young child managed to learn one of the core components of language: how to match words to the objects they represent.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.