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Red Dot 2026 Concept Awards Honor Braille Reader, Flying Car, and Wingless Superbike
The Red Dot Award: Design Concept has announced its 2026 Best of the Best winners, recognizing unbuilt ideas including a portable refreshable Braille reader, a six-seat hybrid-electric flying car, a reductive V4 superbike, and Hyundai's rideable MobED platform.
The Red Dot Award: Design Concept has announced its 2026 Best of the Best winners, a tier just below the competition's top Luminary prize, honoring unbuilt ideas that range from assistive reading technology to a six-seat flying car. The awards, which have celebrated concept-stage design since 2005, recognized projects from Hyundai, Xpeng's Aridge unit, Norton Motorcycles, and a team from Ningbo University.
Among the most socially significant winners is Tangibook, a portable refreshable Braille reader designed by Mao Chengjie, Zhao Chenyang, and the TRIZID and Ningbo University team. The device converts printed text into real-time tactile output, allowing visually impaired users to read books independently, accurately, and privately. Only a small fraction of printed books are ever released in Braille, and existing refreshable displays often cost thousands of dollars while requiring a phone or computer for content. Tangibook bypasses both the expense and the waiting list by reading directly from the page, with rows of Braille cells under both hands and a dial and buttons on the right side. Seven designers are credited on the project.
Hyundai Motor Company and Hyundai Genesis Global Design earned recognition for two concepts built on the MobED platform, a flat, four-wheeled robot originally designed to haul cargo and follow people. The MobED Urban Hopper and MobED Golf add a rider to that base, creating a compact robotic mobility platform with multi-directional driving and modular applications. The Urban Hopper is aimed at city trips, while the Golf version carries a bag on the fairway. Both received a nomination for the Luminary, the competition's top prize. The production MobED is already pitched at business customers.
Xpeng's Aridge unit, formerly known as Aeroht, won for the A868, a six-seat hybrid-electric tilt-rotor flying car designed for regional air mobility. Led by JuanMa Lopez and Wang Tan with a team of fourteen credited designers, the aircraft combines vertical takeoff with a claimed range above 500 kilometers and a top speed over 360 kilometers per hour. Aridge says the prototype has entered test flights, a step beyond most concept renders. The A868 seats one more passenger than Joby's S4, a detail that signals the vehicle's premium positioning.
Norton Motorcycles took a different approach with the Manx R, a wingless, decal-free V4 superbike designed under Simon Skinner with advice from chief creative advisor Gerry McGovern. Red Dot described it as a modern, reductive take on the superbike, free from racing regulations and built around the road rider. The silver-white bodywork sweeps from nose to tail without decorative lines, while an all-new 1,200cc V4 produces roughly 200 horsepower. Semi-active suspension, Brembo brakes, and an 8-inch TFT touchscreen complete the package. Norton is now owned by India's TVS Motor Company.
The 2026 Best of the Best list reflects a jury willing to reward both practical assistive technology and speculative mobility. Tangibook addresses a concrete gap in access to reading material, while the A868 and Manx R push at the boundaries of transportation and motorcycle design. Together, the winners show that concept awards increasingly serve as a preview of which unbuilt ideas may eventually reach the road, the sky, or the hands of readers.
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