Hankook Tire Sweeps 'iF Design Award'... "Wins 4 Main Awards"

Hankook Tire & Technology (hereinafter Hankook Tire) announced on the 26th that it won four main awards in three categories?Product, Professional Concept, and Communication?at the German ‘iF Design Award 2023’ (hereinafter iF Award).

The ‘iF Award’ is an event hosted by the German marketing consulting firm ‘International Forum Design.’ Along with Germany’s ‘Red Dot Design Award’ and the United States’ ‘IDEA,’ it is considered one of the three most prestigious design awards worldwide.

First, the product category winner, ‘iON evo,’ is a high-performance tire product from Hankook Tire’s world-first full lineup electric vehicle-exclusive tire brand ‘iON.’ It applies noise reduction specialized technology to provide a comfortable ride and features a stylish graphic design inspired by the electric atom ‘Ion.’ Developed from the design stage targeting premium high-performance electric vehicles, it boasts balanced performance without bias toward any specific attribute such as ‘low noise,’ ‘energy efficiency,’ or ‘mileage.’

In particular, ‘iON evo’ solidified its position as a representative product in the high-performance electric vehicle tire segment by winning the main award at the iF Award following its success at the Red Dot Award.

The Professional Concept award winners are ‘Urban Reshaping Concept’ and the robotic wheel system ‘Wheelbot,’ both results of Hankook Tire’s research and development program ‘Design Innovation 2022,’ which presents a vision for future mobility.

In this program, Hankook Tire set a future smart city centered on humans and eco-friendliness by reflecting the recently spreading eco-friendly trend under the theme of ‘Urban Reshaping.’ They produced and released a scenario video proposing ‘Space Shifting Mobility (SSM),’ optimized for such an environment.

The ‘Wheelbot’ featured in the scenario video is a modular robotics system driven by three axes. It is a concept product providing optimal mobility for smart mobility. At the ‘2022 Made in Korea’ event held last year, the actual driving technology of Wheelbot was demonstrated, earning recognition for realizing future mobility beyond a virtual scenario. The Wheelbot driving video released on Hankook Tire’s official SNS channel in December of the same year was also selected as one of the ‘Top 10 Best Videos of 2022’ by the global industrial design magazine ‘Designboom.’

Lastly, the Communication category winner, the ‘Urban Reshaping 2022 Video,’ futuristically depicts an SSM combining a mobile platform driven by spherical wheels with electromagnetic force and a mini-van-sized pod, moving three-dimensionally from roads to inside and outside buildings.

The video captures scenes where the SSM flexibly configures spaces as needed in home, medical, and work environments to improve energy efficiency, presenting Hankook Tire’s unique mobility vision optimized for a future smart city advocating eco-friendliness.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.