Iron Vehicle · 2025
Modu Vehicle
- A' Design Award 2025 in Vehicle
- CLIENT: Modu
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 47,095
- Verification code 6733957622 · Verify this award
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About Modu Vehicle
Modu is a modular city car designed for urban mobility. The vehicle is built around interchangeable components. The left and right headlights are identical, and the same applies to the mirrors, the front and rear bumpers, the drive system and the chassis. This approach reduces the part count, the manufacturing cost and the energy used in production. The body is made of laser cut and bent anodized aluminium panels, with an electric drivetrain, in-wheel motors and air suspension. The car is configured online at purchase, and modules can be changed later as needs change.
About the A' Design Award
Modu Vehicle is an Iron A' Design Award winner, a prestigious recognition granted to good designs that meet the professional and industrial requirements expected from well-designed creations. Iron winners demonstrate great skill, high specialization, expert understanding, and creative capacity of their creators. Modu Vehicle is expected to be a highly regarded, admired, and cherished creation that is practical and innovative. This Iron A' Design Award-winning design integrates industry best practices and has competent technical characteristics linked with know-how and talent. Modu Vehicle is respected for its thoroughness and is designed to provide quality of life improvements that help make the world a better place.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Modu is designed around modularity and interchangeability of components. It can be configured both at purchase and later as the need changes without buying a new vehicle. Modu introduces the concept of interchangeability, for instance, the left and right headlights are identical, the driving mirrors, the front and back bumpers, even the drive system and chassis system. This significantly reduces the manufacturing cost, energy and subsequently a smaller environmental footprint.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Modu is modular so the dimension will vary base on the configuration. Minimum configuration 1.8m length x 0.85m width x 1.5m height
Electric drivetrain, In-wheel electric motor, air suspension, laser cut and bent anodized aluminum body panels. - Tags
- Modular, City Car, Urban Mobility, Sustainable Design, Electric Vehicle, Interchangeable Components, Lightweight, Innovative, Compact, Energy Efficient, Flexible
- Production Technology
- The design of Modu was made possible through Design Thinking. Early ideas were captured via sketching, white boarding and sticky notes to capture critical features. These ideas were then refined through peer interviews and feedback. Iterative sketches led to CAD modeling in Siemens NX, with FDM 3D printing to validating key technical features. Realistic renderings in Keyshot and composition in Photoshop were used to visualize the vehicle and its potential use cases.
- Design Challenge
- The main challenge was combining complete modularity with aesthetics and structural integrity, a tough balance since these often conflict. The inspiration for Modu's exoskeleton design is from military vehicles, this simplified the design and reduced part count. Additionally, making the parts interchangeable was a challenge but crucial, for instance the left and right headlights are interchangeable, even driving mirrors, the bumpers, the drive system and many other components.
- Research
- Extensive academic research on urban mobility trends, material options, and advanced manufacturing, combined with user-centered design principles, drove Modu’s development. Informal interviews and digital prototypes captured local transportation insights and spurred iterative refinements. This research and feedback validated the need for a sustainable, adaptable vehicle, guiding design choices toward superior modularity, energy efficiency, and operational versatility.
- Inspiration
- I grew up in Ghana, West Africa where transportation continues to be an issue. Seeing first hand the potential of a highly optimized vehicle to impact lives, I was inspired to design a brilliant yet affordable solutions. Modu is designed to give the customer absolute freedom to configure the vehicle at the time of purchase and even later as their need changes without needing to buy a completely new car.
- Project Duration
- Project started in August 2024 in San Jose California and finished in January 2025
- Operation Flow
- The unique experience of this vehicle to starts right with the purchasing experience; The customer will configure the new Modu on an online platform where key elements such as size, specific modules and intended use can be chosen.
the vehicle is then delivered after a few days due to the ease of customization.
Operating Modu will be extremely easy with the ability to use the smartphone as a dashboard hence all the users music , frequently visited locations, contacts, etc all comes along for the ride on seamless experience.
