Technology Product Development Aliera IP · Heritage R&D Concept — Prototype Validated

Adaptive Modular Electric Vehicle Platform

ADAPTecture · a live, reconfigurable vehicle architecture

Every vehicle you've ever seen is built on a fixed platform. This one isn't. ADAPTecture replaces the platform with structural building blocks: functional modules that are the vehicle's structure, carry their own power and energy, and can be added, dropped, and swapped mid-run. The result is a light commercial vehicle that changes shape, stiffness, payload, and even aerodynamics — live.

Developed through an industrial R&D programme in the UK and EU, validated on a full cab-and-payload prototype. The concepts and IP now sit within Aliera, feeding our current vehicle programmes.

The D3R Concept Talk to Us

Concept render of the adaptive modular electric vehicle

The Live Vehicle

A structure that senses, reconfigures, and protects — while driving.

When a payload module is added or removed, the vehicle's weight distribution and structural behaviour change. ADAPTecture treats that as a control problem, not a compromise:

AI-controlled active structure: a reconfigurable frame with a variable stiffness matrix — the structure itself adapts to load, road, and configuration in real time.

Active vehicle dynamics: modular active suspension with in-hub motors, collapsible body panels, and modular battery packs — ride and handling tuned continuously as the vehicle's shape changes.

Active crash protection: crash structures that respond to protect the driver, not just absorb.

One high-level controller arbitrates vehicle dynamics, active safety, power and energy flows, and driver interaction across every module on board.

Annotated platform render: in-hub motors, modular active suspension, Li-ion modular battery packing, drive-by-wire docks, and modular safety impact zones

Active stiffness control architecture: integrated chassis with crumple zone, structural-stiffness battery packs, actuators, controllers and rotational joints for torsional stiffness and vibration control

Modularity

Modules aren't carried by the vehicle. They are the vehicle.

Modularity runs to component level. Driver cell, payload modules, battery modules, suspension modules, and reconfigurable structure sections bolt together into whatever the job needs — and because each functional module is load-bearing and brings its own power and energy units, frame weight drops, payload capacity rises, and the power-to-weight ratio becomes something you configure, not inherit.

Exploded CAD view of the modular light commercial vehicle: driver cell, structural modules, and payload sections — Component-level modularity: driver cell, structure, battery, suspension — all interchangeable blocks.

Module diagram: driver cell, active safety module, suspension modules, battery modules, structural integration module, and reconfigurable rear structure — Every block shares data and power through a common adjustable frame interface.

The D3R Concept

Deposit, Rapid Recharge & Recollect: freight that never stops.

Urban delivery vehicles spend their day parked, loading, or charging. D3R was designed to delete all three:

Drop the module, keep driving: payload modules carry their own battery and powertrain, so the vehicle deposits a module for delivery and continues its run without it.

Modules recharge themselves: deposited modules recharge at the drop point and are recollected on a later pass — with freight security and tracking built into each block.

Dynamic charging on the move using available infrastructure — in theory, a D3R fleet runs 24 hours without a single charge pause.

One vehicle, the whole supply chain: the varying payload structure and footprint let the same LDV work every leg, from depot to last mile.

Concept render: payload modules deposited at a charging point while the vehicle frame continues — Deposited payload modules recharging at the drop point — each with its own battery and powertrain.

Variable Aerodynamics

A body that changes shape to cut drag.

Because the structure reconfigures, the aerodynamics can too. CFD studies across cab-only, part-laden, and fully-laden configurations shaped a body that adapts its profile to the payload actually on board — recovering the energy a fixed van body wastes pushing air it no longer needs to.

Each configuration, simulated: maximum payload (top), adaptive payload (middle), and aerodynamic mode with the rear prismatic joint at its lowest position (bottom) — with pressure fields and streamlines for each.

Where It Lives Now

Concept proven then. Feeding what we build now.

The programme validated its concepts on a complete prototype vehicle — cab and payload module — and produced patentable work in component-level modularity, live AI-controlled structures, reconfigurable stiffness, active crash protection, and the D3R delivery system. That IP came to Aliera with its founder, and its thinking runs directly into our current vehicle work: the modular, frameless architecture behind SAHER's electric mobility programme.

Concept render of the cab and payload module in delivery configuration — The cab-and-payload configuration developed for prototype validation.

Building vehicles, or the systems inside them?

From vehicle architecture and active structures to powertrains and embedded control — Aliera engineers mobility from concept to prototype. Tell us what you're building.

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