Hankook scopes the future

Hankook chose the 2014 Essen motor show to unveil a trio of cutting-edge concept tyres intended to take motoring into a new age of environmental challenges created by global warming.

Developed as part of the company’s 'Design Innovation Project', a cooperative effort that was executed in conjunction with the University of Design, Engineering and Business in Pforzheim, Germany, the three trail-blazing tyre designs diversify into three separate functions: remote and dry terrain, extreme cold and extreme wet conditions.

The three new designs, 'Boostrac', 'Alpike' and 'Hyblade', sound like something out of a CG Sci-Fi movie and were created to “optimally address new challenges arising from global warming.”

It's an ambitious project for a tyre company and an interesting glimpse of how elements of the car industry feel they can design proactively to prepare for the future.

Integrating something of the Transformer robot concept into their design, the future tyres are fashioned so they can change and adapt to the circumstances.

Boostrac, for example, is able to transform, according to the circumstances, into an “expanded” mode that increases traction via variable hexagonal tread blocks. This enables optimal performance in steep, rough conditions on desert of mountain roads.

The Alpike tyre has a “circumferential expansion mode” that enables it to actually increase its circumference, providing greater ground clearance, as well as better traction via studs and tread gaps created as the tyre expands. This is aimed at improving performance in heavy snow.

HyBlade is designed to work in heavy rain via what is described as a “waterwheel tread and side spokes that create driving and steering force in heavy rain.”

In its last exploration of future technology in 2012, Hankook teamed with the University of Cincinnati in the USA to develop the non-pneumatic, high-performance 'Tiltread' tyre as well as the shape-shifting 'eMembrane' eco tyre, both of which scored IDEA International Design Excellence Awards in the transportation category in 2014.