Hankook Tire Receives 2018 IDEA Award

Hankook Tire received the 2018 IDEA award for its Kinergy AS ev, a tire for electric vehicles. The tire was recognized as a winner in the automotive and transportation category at the International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) 2018.

Hankook Tire has received many IDEA awards in previous years for its futuristic concept tires. The tire manufacturer was a finalist in 2017, and was a bronze and winner in 2015. However, the 2018 award marks the first time that Hankook Tire has received an award for a mass production model.

The main characteristics of the Kinergy AS ev tires are its hyper-low noise environment which is optimized for electric vehicles. The comfort, driving and handling performance it offers are comparable to high performance passenger tires. The Kinergy AS ev tire has a block design similar to electric circuits, and it has a customized electrical vehicle sidewall design for better aerodynamic performance.

Hankook employed several technologies to reduce noise including a technology that optimizes the pitch arrangement to reduce a certain frequency that incurs when driving. Another technology used in the tire was an aramid hybrid reinforcement belt meant only for electric vehicles in order to minimize tread block distortion when changing direction. Thus, the tire would be able to maintain optimum grip force for better handling performance and higher handling stability.

Hankook’s tire received the award in recognition of the company’s design philosophy, award and the company’s potential to lead the future driving environment. Hankook Tire is planning to continue to focus on active development of innovative designs to retain its status as a leader in the tire industry.

The IDEA awards which are given by the Industrial Design Society of America, are recognized all over the world as one of the top awards in the field of design. It is one of the top three design awards in the world along with the ‘iF DESIGN AWARD’ and ‘Red Dot Design Award’. All the entries for the IDEA awards are stringently evaluated on the basis of several parameters like user experience and benefit, design innovation, corporate social responsibility and aesthetics in order to choose the winners in each category.