- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
cross-posted from: https://lazysoci.al/post/40677034
cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/24122615
A team of students from the Eindhoven University of Technology has built a prototype electric car with a built-in toolbox and components that can be easily repaired or replaced without specialist knowledge.
The university’s TU/ecomotive group, which focuses on developing concepts for future sustainable vehicles, describes its ARIA concept as “a modular electric city car that you can repair yourself”.
ARIA, which stands for Anyone Repairs It Anywhere, is constructed using standardised components including a battery, body panels and internal electronic elements that can be easily removed and replaced if a fault occurs.
With assistance from an instruction manual and a diagnostics app that provides detailed information about the car’s status, users should be able to carry out their own maintenance using only the tools in the car’s built-in toolbox, the TU/ecomotive team claimed.
Pretty great concept but my immediate concern is how feasible it is to get this type of car street legal. Like, is safety being compromised to fit a modular design? A single central body is pretty important for surviving highway speed accidents.
That is not the students’ task I guess. That should and will be done by the industry. The concept could possibly be adapted to an existing electric car platform (chassis, frame,…).
My guess is that some company will buy them out and bury the plans.
Great question. I’d love to read more about the whole concept.
There’s some more info here: https://www.tuecomotive.nl/our-family/aria/
and the followup project: https://www.tuecomotive.nl/our-family/phoenix/
note that these are very much student-learning projects, not actually anything anyone will ever use since they would be deathtraps.
I was imagining that the chassis is one piece, but everything else is diy: battery, motor, etc. Most cars these days are technically diy, because any mechanic can fix them without asking the manufacturer, but manufacturers don’t seem to like it.
It’s very much a concept car build rather than something that’s production ready.
The photo into the trunk area with the toolbox shows that it’s just one-off welded square tubing. It also doesn’t even have any inner wheel well liners or real headlights.
It’s a good concept though and sustainable, right to repair is where the world needs to move to now but us all in waste and financial ruin.
AccidentsCall then “wrecks” or “collisions”, don’t perpetuate the patronizing exceptionalism, please. 🥲Literally are accidents.
Woodworkers loosing a finger is an accident too. A lot of expectable things are accidents.