Dive Brief:

• There are Honda cars, HondaJets and, perhaps in the not-too-distant future, Honda houses.
• Built as a demonstration and laboratory facility at the University of California, Davis, the Honda Smart Home U.S. uses rooftop solar to generate power and a Honda battery to store enough electricity to power the home, charge a Honda Fit electric vehicle overnight and put about 2.6 megawatt-hours into the electric grid annually.
• Honda's home system reduces greenhouse gas emissions by using concrete made with a cement that does not require manufacturing temperatures as high as conventional products, and it recycles shower gray water in an exchanger to heat incoming cold water. 

Dive Insight:

The U.S. home design grows out of one the company introduced in Japan in 2012. It's unclear at this point how close to net-zero energy consumption a Honda house could run if it were in, for example, Watertown, N.Y., or Bismark, N.D., rather than sunny Davis, Calif.