BMW iX3 Plugs Into the Smart Home With SOLARWATT Tie-Up

The BMW iX3 is set to become a fully fledged part of the family home’s energy setup, with BMW and SOLARWATT pushing their long-running partnership into a new phase. The arrival of the Neue Klasse cars, led by the BMW iX3 and the BMW i3, brings with it the rollout of BMW’s bidirectional charging tech, turning the car into more than just a means of getting from A to B. After Germany became the first market to get a commercial Vehicle-to-Grid offering back in March 2026, the next chapter focuses on Vehicle-to-Home applications, letting owners use their car’s traction battery to power the house.

At the heart of the new setup sits the SOLARWATT Manager home energy management system, which acts as the bridge between the car and the rest of the household kit. The Manager handles the smart routing of power between the solar array, the home battery, the appliances drawing current and now the car itself, all working in concert. Pair a Neue Klasse BMW with the bidirectional BMW Wallbox Professional, and the car can either soak up surplus solar energy or push electricity back into the home when needed. Market launch for the integrated system is pencilled in for late 2026, kicking off in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.

BMW and SOLARWATT have been working together on electromobility since 2013, and in 2021, the pair rolled out a home storage system that borrowed battery components from the group’s electric cars. Its successor, the SOLARWATT Battery vision, has been on sale since 2025 with a housing penned by BMW Designworks USA. The latest move builds on that foundation, treating the electric car as another piece of storage that slots neatly alongside the solar panels and the wall-mounted home battery. Drivers manage everything through the My BMW App and the SOLARWATT Home app, with controls for charge times, discharge settings and energy flows all sitting in one place.

The SOLARWATT Manager has been built with flexibility in mind, allowing dynamic electricity tariffs and solar forecasts to be folded into the equation. Plug in a weather prediction suggesting a sunny afternoon, and the system can hold off topping up the home battery, knowing the panels will do the job for free later on. The platform is also open to third-party kits, so a homeowner running a battery from another brand can still bring everything into one ecosystem. Peter Bachmann, Chief Product Officer at SOLARWATT, sees the car as a natural extension of the home battery, allowing owners to lean more heavily on their own solar output and cut their reliance on grid power.

Marcus Krieg, Vice President New Business at BMW Group, points to the wider picture, noting that the combined storage capacity of bidirectional electric cars could become a serious asset for the energy transition. Get enough cars feeding back into the system intelligently, and grid strain eases, renewables become easier to slot in, and fresh storage capacity arrives without anyone needing to build a new power station. The next public showing comes at Intersolar at The Smarter E, with the phased rollout building towards full market launch by the close of the year. The partners are pitching the result as a single joined-up experience, with the car, the home and the energy management platform all pulling in the same direction.