Hankook Tire HPS-Cell sweeps top three design awards by winning IDEA 2021

- Recognized as the Finalist for the Automotive and Transportation category at the IDEA 2021
- HPS-Cell had also won iF Design Award as well as Red Dot Design Award
- HPS-Cell is a modular platform proposed at Hankook Tire’s Design Innovation 2020 project

Seoul, Korea, September 24, 2021 – Global leading tire company Hankook Tire & Technology was recognized as the Finalist in the Automotive and Transportation category at the International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) 2021, for its innovation project work, ‘Hankook Platform System (HPS)-Cell’.

This achievement makes Hankook Tire a winner of all three of the world's most renowned design awards this year. Hankook Tire’s HPS-Cell had won the ‘Red Dot’ in Mobility and Transportation category at the Red Dot Design Award: Design Concept 2021 in July and was announced as the winner at iF Design Award 2021 for Professional Concept category in April.

The award-winning HPS-Cell is a modular platform proposed through Hankook Tire’s Design Innovation project, 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.

HPS-Cell was unveiled in November last year as an outcome of the Design Innovation 2020 project. Under the theme ‘Urban Reshaping’, the project visualized transformation of cities geared by mobility reconfigured as part of living spaces rather than a stand-alone vehicle in the future where augmented automation infrastructure and cutting-edge technologies such as eco-friendly technology, autonomous driving and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are to be adopted.

HPS-Cell is a modular platform based on tire, the foundation of the mobility. The tire of HPS-Cell is an airless tire featuring unit-cell structure. It uses sensor technology to not only identify tire treads and road conditions in real time, but also respond to wear-out risks and change tread patterns according to the road condition utilizing variable wheels and optimized infrastructure. It’s applied with ‘Hankook Innovative Performance (H.I.P)’ which represents Hankook’s technological breakthroughs.

"We are truly honored to receive the IDEA design awards with HPS-Cell. This year, by taking all three most prestigious awards, we have once again proved our world-class design competency,” says Jimmy Kwon, Vice President of Hankook Tire’s Brand Lab. “Moving forward, we plan to actively explore innovative designs through continuous R&D investments and joint projects to lead the future mobility.”

The IDEA, organized by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), is one of the top three reputable international design awards along with the Red Dot Design Award and the iF Design Award. The best design is selected every year through comprehensive evaluation of various judging criteria including design innovation, user experience, and benefit to society.