Hankook Tire wins two top honors at Red Dot Design Award 2026

Hankook Tire & Technology swept two best-of-best prizes in the design concept category of the Red Dot Design Award 2026, the company announced Friday, with the ceremony held Thursday (local time) at Capitol Theatre in Singapore.

At the Red Dot Design Award 2026 design concept category — whose winners were announced in August — Hankook Tire claimed two best-of-best honors and four honorable mentions.

The iFlex Gen2 is a next-generation non-pneumatic concept tire optimized for future electric vehicles and autonomous driving environments. Building on a decade of research and development since the first-generation iFlex debuted in 2015, it is the industry's first tire to adopt a circumferential spoke structure, which the company says enhances aesthetic refinement alongside reduced noise and improved driving stability.

Medi Buddy is a futuristic medical mobility design developed through an industry-academia collaboration with the Korea Institute of Design Promotion's university talent-development program. Centered on the theme of "2030 mobile AI," the concept integrates autonomous driving and AI technology, taking the form of an interactive IV-drip stand designed to interact with hospitalized children, ease their fear of hospitals and support their psychological well-being.

Both winning designs are set to be featured in a special exhibition at the Red Dot Design Museum in Singapore.

The Red Dot Design Award is considered one of the world's three most prestigious design competitions, alongside Germany's iF Design Award and the US-based IDEA. Each year it selects winners across categories including product design, brand and communication design, and design concept. The design concept category, organized by Red Dot Singapore, focuses on evaluating the innovation and forward-looking ideas of prototype-stage work.

Hankook Tire has consistently built its reputation at all three major global design awards: in 2015 it became the first Korean company to receive the Red Dot "Luminary" distinction, followed by the first gold at the iF Design Award in the tire industry in 2016 and a bronze at IDEA in 2017.

"We will continue to present a sustainable mobility vision grounded in innovative design and technology, and to strengthen our global design competitiveness," a company official said.

Meanwhile, Hankook Tire recently had 11 products across nine categories named on the winners list of the 2026 WhatTyre Awards, organized by the influential British tire trade publication WhatTyre, marking the company's sixth consecutive year on the list.