The House of the Future

Car giant Honda drives sustainability research with its innovative zero-net energy homes. Honda’s smart house is an innovative eco-friendly, energy efficient lab, that is able to generate its own power as a solution to living off the grid.

As we get more and more electric vehicles we’re going to have to be more careful in the way they integrate with the house and how they integrate with the electric grid. So by putting the house and car together as a system, the system can be more than the sum of its parts.

Created in partnership with the University of California at Davis, Honda’s zero-net energy home is heated and cooled by the earth and generates enough power from solar energy to also run a car and feed energy back into the grid.

In designing the home, scientists at Honda said they took local weather conditions into account to optimise heating and cooling. They say once their data is made public, people will able to incorporate elements into the planning and design of their own homes.