Hankook Tire Wins Red Dot Design Award for its Innovation Project Work, HPS-Cell

Seoul, Korea, July 21, 2021 – Global leading tire company Hankook Tire has won the Red Dot Award: Design Concept 2021. Its Hankook Platform System (HPS)-Cell, a solution proposed by Hankook as part of its Design Innovation project, was named as the “Red Dot” in the Mobility and Transportation category.

Hankook Tire’s “Design Innovation Project” is a research project on smart city and future mobility. Through joint research, the project puts forward a vision for future driving and solutions that tackle today’s challenges. The Design Innovation 2020 project, under the theme “Urban Reshaping“, visualized the transformation of cities geared by mobility reconfigured as part of living spaces, rather than as a stand-alone vehicle, in a future where augmented automation infrastructure and cutting-edge technologies such as eco-friendly technology, autonomous driving and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are to be adopted.

The results of the project, including HPS-Cell, were unveiled in November 2020. HPS-Cell is a modular platform based on a tire which Hankook belives to be the foundation of mobility. The tire of HPS-Cell is airless, featuring a unit-cell structure and using sensor technology to not only identify tire treads and road conditions in real time, but also to respond to wearing risks and change tread patterns according to the road conditions by utilizing variable wheels and optimized infrastructure. It is applied with “Hankook Innovative Performance“ (H.I.P), which represents Hankook’s technological breakthroughs.

By winning the Red Dot Award, in addition to receiving the iF Design Award 2021 in the Professional Concept category in April 2021, the HPS-Cell has now taken two of the most globally renowned design awards.

"We are honored to receive the Red Dot Design Award once again. Hankook Tire’s innovative tires have achieved significant accomplishments in the Red Dot Design Award history,” says Jimmy Kwon, Vice President of Hankook Tire’s Brand Lab. "We are especially glad to be recognized for our Design Innovation project work as it displays the challenging spirit and innovative DNA of the company. This recognition demonstrates our design leadership in the industry as well as our vision for future mobility.”

The Red Dot Design Award is given out each year to industry leaders who have designed the best and innovative products of that year. The award’s origins date back to 1955, and is organized by the Design Center Nordrhein-Westfalen in Germany to appraise industrial products in three different areas: Product Design, Communication Design, and Design Concept. Various leading global automobile, electronics, fashion, and architecture companies participate each year.