Every two years, the ‘Design Innovation’ project—organized by Hankook with design universities—is held and concluded at the Motor Show in Essen, Germany.
The motto of the design studies prepared in 2018 in cooperation with the London Royal College of Art was “Extending Future Life beyond Mobility”. Hankook is presenting the winning entries “Aeroflow” and “Hexonic” by the London-based design students.
“This project is part of our effort to find creative and efficient solutions for mobility of the future,” explained Klaus Krause, Head of the European Research and Development Centre at Hankook. “We are very pleased to be presenting creative contributions that demonstrate the out-of-the-box mindset that we also promote in our employees. Over the past few years, the project has already contributed to the development of innovative tyres. We will no doubt continue to develop new visions that go beyond the limits of current tyres and mobility.”
“Hexonic” is an intelligent tyre concept for autonomous shared mobility vehicles. The designer considered autonomous, driverless vehicles for future cities and developed a tire for jointly used cars. Passenger comfort is the deciding factor here. The Hexonic supports the vehicle’s efforts to offer maximum driving comfort by scanning and analysing the road in real time using seven separate sensors. This way, the tire records road conditions such as grip, temperature and state of the road surface and adapts the tyre treads accordingly.
The “Aeroflow” is a tire for maximum downforce designed for motorsports. The wheel has been widened through a separable tread and the tyre grip has been optimised. The wheels have been equipped with turbine impellers to pick up the air during driving and use this to generate additional downforce if necessary. The focus of the design on downforce, which is not generally taken into consideration during tyre development, is what makes the draft so unique.