If we don’t reinvent housing, a certain someone else (cough…Elon…cough) probably will

Housing is the world’s largest asset class, yet how we build homes has barely evolved. While energy, mobility, and automation have leapt forward, construction remains stubbornly analog. But just like all forms of disruption, things happen slowly and then all at once!

Building a new civilization, not just companies

As has been written about, Musk’s ventures are not isolated. Each - from SpaceX and Tesla to SolarCity to Optimus - forms part of a broader ecosystem. Together, they sketch out a vision for how humanity might build self-sustaining civilizations on Mars and beyond. Musk has been incredibly open about this ambition. Impressively, many foundational pieces are already in place. And he’s created billions of dollars of wealth along the way. It’s natural for any curious observer to wonder what might come next.  

Energy, Mobility, and Automation: The foundation is coming together

Every civilization starts with energy. Mars has no refineries, but it does have sunlight. Tesla’s solar panels and battery systems show what a self-sufficient power grid can look like. Whether on another planet or in remote parts of Earth, this kind of distributed energy becomes the backbone of survival.

With energy established, mobility follows. The same electric drive units that power Teslas today could propel rovers on Mars tomorrow; vehicles designed for closed-loop ecosystems where supply chains don’t exist.

Next comes automation. With Optimus, Tesla’s humanoid robot, Musk is redefining labor. On Earth, robots enhance productivity; on Mars, they become the workforce. They will be able to move materials, assemble infrastructure, and maintain systems long before humans arrive.

Oh, and xAI brings the intellectual horsepower needed across all of the above while Starlink satellites power communication.

The missing piece: Housing?

For all of Musk’s interconnected ventures, one piece is still glaringly missing - the oldest and most fundamental of human technologies: shelter. The way we build homes is still astonishingly slow, fragmented, and manual. There’s no room for that kind of inefficiency on Mars. Not to mention that framing walls with hammers and nails won’t work in a dust storm. No, you’d probably want to design once, build many and assemble fast. Sounds a lot like prefabrication.

Prefab isn’t just a housing manufacturing modality. It’s a critical capability. If you can automate the production of cars, rockets, and robots, why not homes? Especially when the lessons learned on Earth - factory-built, zero-energy, sensor-rich dwellings - translate directly to Mars, where every bolt, beam, and cubic meter must be optimized for survival.

No, it would not surprise us one bit to see an “xHome” or “Base 1” of “Boring Home” emerge in the coming years. In fact, we know Musk has already done extensive real life research by living in a 375 sqft “tiny home” made by Boxabl.

The industry won’t see it coming

Traditional builders won’t believe it until it happens. They’ll cite codes, unions, financing models, and local politics as proof that disruption is impossible. But that’s what Detroit said before Tesla. That’s what aerospace said before SpaceX. Why should housing be any different? It’s called disruption for a reason.

Pay attention, Canada

For Musk, Mars isn’t a dream. It’s a systems problem. Piece by piece, he is optimizing the components that inform that system. In each case, his approach is simple: simplify design, standardize production, manically eliminate waste. Here in Canada, the housing industry has its own systems problem. We need millions of homes within the next decade, costs are rising faster than incomes, project-by-project delivery approaches can’t keep pace. This isn’t a crisis of effort; it’s a crisis of structure. Our housing system demands Musk-esq first-principles thinking – not Band-Aids.

That’s where Build Canada Homes (BCH) can demonstrate meaningful leadership. BCH has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rethink how housing gets built, financed, and delivered at scale. The goal shouldn’t be to just fund more units but to lead the re-engineering of the system that produces them. If we execute, we can build global leadership.

Time to Act

There is no doubt that “Big Tech” will enter the housing sector within the next decade. It’s one of the few trillion-dollar industries still up for grabs. If the industry here in Canada doesn’t step-up it’s game, solutions will no doubt be created elsewhere and we will find ourselves importing homes the way we import cars and phones. We have the talent, the physical capacity and the need to win. Let’s not wait for Musk this time.