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.