Hyundai Motor Company won its first-ever ‘Luminary’ honor at Red Dot Award: Design Concept 2022 with its Trailer Drone fully autonomous hydrogen mobility concept.
The ‘Luminary’ honor is the highest level of recognition accorded at the Red Dot Award: Design Concept, selected from among Red Dot’s ‘Best of the Best’ winners to serve as inspiration and role model for designers.
Overall, Hyundai won three awards, including ‘Luminary,’ ‘Best of the Best’ and ‘Winner’ honors, at the annual event hosted by Germany’s Design Zentrum Nordrhein-Westfalen. In addition to the ‘Luminary’ award for Trailer Drone, Red Dot also named the SEVEN sport utility electric vehicle (SUEV) concept a ‘Best of the Best’ and the robotics-based Plug & Drive (PnD) modular platform a ‘Winner.’
“Red Dot has yet again recognized our efforts to transform into a smart mobility solution provider with visionary designs based on diverse technologies. In particular, Trailer Drone is an important model that shows our vision for fully autonomous, hydrogen fuel cell-based commercial vehicles,” SangYup Lee, Executive Vice President and Head of Hyundai Global Design Center. “This Luminary award celebrates the passion and efforts of our designers and engineers to make the dream of zero-emission mobility come true.
Trailer Drone is a hydrogen-powered container transportation system capable of operating fully autonomously. With the number of intelligently packaged hydrogen tanks tailored to the journey profile, the flexible and efficient Trailer Drone ensures more than 1,000 km of sufficient range from a single charge, comparable to existing container transportation systems.
Hyundai designed the concept to enable diverse applications using e-Bogies, similar to the wheel subframe that sits under every train car. Trailer Drone is a unique and innovative commercial mobility solution in which a trailer is placed on two e-Bogies, allowing it to rotate in a narrower radius than a general trailer.
Unlike conventional tractors that are designed for container transportation only, Trailer Drone offers a multi-purpose platform capable of unlimited business applications. When operated separately from a container trailer, the e-Bogie can be used in various fields, such as cargo transportation, construction, firefighting and rescue.
The ‘Best of the Best’-winning SEVEN sport utility electric vehicle (SUEV) concept, which was revealed at the 2021 LA Auto Show, following the 45 concept in 2019 and Prophecy concept in 2020. The SEVEN concept is the perfect example of Hyundai’s IONIQ brand, with its space innovation and hygienic features transforming the vehicle into a visionary living space on wheels.
With a design optimized for aerodynamic efficiency and pure aesthetics, Hyundai created a silhouette that is completely different from typical SUV designs. Built on the Group’s Electric Global Modular Platform (E-GMP), SEVEN’s long wheelbase, aerodynamic silhouette and unique proportions provide a powerful stance that leave a lasting impression.
The PnD module, which Hyundai revealed at CES 2022 and Red Dot named a ‘Winner’, is an all-in-one mobility solution that combines in-wheel electric drive, intelligent steering, braking and suspension hardware that can be scaled up or down for any purpose, size or application. The PnD module can be attached to anything from tables to containers for expandable mobility. Users can select various drive configurations and platform sizes based on their requirements.
The single wheel unit uses a steering actuator for infinite wheel rotation, meaning it can turn 360 degrees, which enables holonomic movement. LiDAR and camera sensors allow a PnD-enabled object to move autonomously.
Hosted by Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen in Germany, Red Dot Award is one of the world’s largest design competitions. The award breaks down into three different disciplines — Product Design, Brand & Communication Design and Design Concept — to better appraise the diversity in the field of design. The Red Dot Award: Design Concept invites designers, design studios, companies and universities to challenge the status quo and present their most exciting design concepts and prototypes to an international panel of design experts.
