SolarCity & Honda Team Up to Provide Solar Power to Customers

Meet the recently announced partnership between SolarCity and Honda. The companies are teaming up to provide deals to Honda and Acura customers in the U.S. to install solar power on their rooftops. Honda and Acura customers will be able to install solar power with little or no upfront cost, and will have a choice to pre-pay or make a monthly payment that will be less than the cost of their current utility bill. Insurance, repairs and monitoring service are even included. This is a limited time offer for Honda and Acura customers. SolarCity is also offering Honda and Acura customers a chance to make energy efficient upgrades like weatherization.

SolarCity's CEO Lyndon Rive told Bloomberg that the partnership with Honda allows the company to give discounts to customers. "We can be a lot more aggressive with the price," Rive said.

The partnership established an investment fund to finance $65 million worth of solar projects to help Honda and Acura customers go solar. In addition, Honda and SolarCity plan to explore opportunities to combine solar power and EV charging. As a press release states, the companies are "envisioning a future in which Fit EV and Accord Plug-In Hybrid owners will be able to charge their cars from the power of the sun, thereby reducing household CO2 emissions to nearly zero."

Honda and SolarCity are the ideal companies for such a partnership for a number of reasons. SolarCity operates in 14 states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington) and in Washington, D.C. The company makes it easy for homeowners to go solar by providing either a phone or internet consultation to find out whether a homeowner is a good candidate for solar. The company then designs a custom system for the customer.

Honda is Japan's third-largest automaker, and has been at the top of the Union of Concerned Scientists' rankings of overall vehicle environmental performance since 2000. Honda has also topped the list of the greenest vehicles in the U.S. from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) for eleven out of the past 12 years.

"We believe Honda and Acura customers are going to be very interested in going solar once they find out that they can install solar at their home with little or no upfront cost, can lower their monthly utility bill, and can make a positive contribution to protecting the environment," said Steven Center, vice president of the Environmental Business Development Office of American Honda Motor Co., Inc.

This is not the first partnership between a solar installation company and an automaker. In 2011, Ford teamed up with SunPower Corp. to provide customers a chance to buy a rooftop solar system when they bought an all electric Focus or the C-Max Energy plug-in hybrid.

Image credit: SolarCity