The tire manufacturer Hankook has just presented five concepts of what the future tires should look like at the Frankfurt Motor Show from 14th to 24th September. Five proposals created and developed by students of the University of Cincinnati that reflect the brand’s design philosophy.

The tires were developed around the theme “Connect to the Connected World”, with which the company wants to outline possible innovative tire technologies for the mobility of the future, such as Car-Sharing, autonomous driving and interconnected vehicles.
As part of the “DesignInnovation 2016” project, a company development program for leading design universities worldwide, a collaboration with the University of Cincinnati was established to develop these five tire concepts of the future. The result was “Magfloat”, a locomotion medium based on magnetic field expansions, “Flexup”, which can climb stairs, and “iPlay”, a more flexible suspension construction bike. “Shiftrac” offers excellent curvature characteristics, while “Autobine” can automatically place or remove tires depending on the number of passengers on board.

Hankook tire concepts have been awarded several times with design prizes of great prestige worldwide for their remarkable design. In 2015 and 2016, Boostrac, HyBlade and Alpik tire concepts earned the Red DotLuminary, iF Gold and IDEA Awards design awards, while Flexup (bronze) and Shiftrac (finalist) won the 2017 IDEA Award.
The five concept:
Flexup

[You can climb stairs and overcome obstacles (0 ~ 35 km /)]
The rolling surface based on a principle of expansion or compression allows unimpeded circularity between complex urban traffic by climbing stairs and saving obstacles.

Shiftrac

[Excellent characteristics in the curves thanks to the technique Skating]
The skating surface divided thanks to the Skating technique guarantees excellent characteristics in the curves. This concept of tires is designed for special vehicles, Ex. police cars, in big cities.

Autobine

[Expandable depending on the number of passengers / automatic tire placement and removal]
Wheels and tires with their own energy supply that are automatically placed and removed according to the weight of the vehicle. In this concept of autonomous bus (for public transport without driver) applies the principle of an integrated dron.

i-play

[Two-wheel drive with maximum efficiency and excellent spin performance]
The more flexible suspension construction bike offers a compact stop volume and optimized curve behavior. Like Flexup, this concept allows individual users to flexibly move around the city with great freedom of barriers.

Magfloat

[Flexible wheel that benefits from magnetic fields (0 ~ 15 km / h)]
A table with principles based on the magnification of the magnetic field and rotation. Thanks to its improved accessibility and portability, it runs smoothly through pavements and can also be used indoors.

Santiago Ibáñez – abc_motor Madrid – 09/15/2017 (Translation Soft)