For decades, automotive design was largely judged by what drivers could immediately see and touch: the exterior silhouette, the cabin, materials and controls.
Hyundai Motor Group’s latest showing at the 2026 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) suggests that definition is becoming increasingly outdated.
The group collected 16 awards this year, including two Gold, one Silver and three Bronze honors. Yet the more revealing part of the result is not the number of trophies. It is the range of projects that received them.
A compact electric mobility concept designed around the streets of India won Gold. So did a book documenting the philosophy of a Korean restaurant in Singapore. A high-performance Genesis concept won Silver, while Kia’s PBV infotainment system earned Bronze.
Other recognized projects ranged from a mobility research space in Seoul to digital interfaces, social-impact campaigns and experimental mobility platforms.
Taken together, they point to a broader shift: Hyundai Motor Group is increasingly treating design not simply as the styling of a vehicle, but as the architecture of the entire experience surrounding mobility.
From designing cars to designing mobility
Hyundai Motor’s Gold-winning E3W and E4W Micro Mobility Concepts offer perhaps the clearest example.
Rather than beginning with a conventional passenger car and adapting it to a new market, Hyundai approached the project from the opposite direction. It looked at India’s motor rickshaw — one of the country’s most familiar forms of everyday transportation — and reconsidered what that vehicle could become in an electrified era.
The resulting three- and four-wheel concepts use compact dimensions suited to crowded urban streets, while flexible interiors allow them to accommodate passengers, cargo and potentially other services.
What matters here is not simply the appearance of the vehicles.
The design begins with how people move, what kind of streets they use and what functions a vehicle needs to perform in that environment. The vehicle becomes the outcome of the mobility problem rather than the starting point.
That approach is increasingly relevant as automakers move into markets where the traditional model of privately owned passenger cars does not necessarily define the future of transportation.
The screen is becoming part of the vehicle’s identity
Kia’s PV5 Infotainment System illustrates another change.
The system won Bronze in the Digital Interaction category, rather than an automotive design category. That distinction matters.
As vehicles become software-defined and increasingly connected, the digital interface is no longer secondary to the physical vehicle. It is becoming one of the primary ways customers experience it.
This is particularly important for Kia’s Platform Beyond Vehicle, or PBV, strategy.
A PBV could operate as a passenger shuttle, delivery vehicle, business platform or other specialized space. The software interface therefore has to accommodate different users and purposes rather than simply provide navigation, entertainment and vehicle settings.
In that environment, automotive design increasingly overlaps with software design.
For companies such as Hyundai Motor Group, the competition is no longer confined to creating attractive dashboards. The challenge is to build digital environments that remain intuitive as vehicles become more configurable and perform a wider range of functions.
Genesis uses design to define performance
At the other end of the portfolio, Genesis is using design to establish a more specific identity around performance.
The Magma GT Concept, which received Silver in the Automotive & Transportation category, represents the clearest expression yet of the brand’s “luxury high performance” direction.
Its low, wide stance, elongated roofline and mid-engine proportions are considerably removed from the visual language traditionally associated with Genesis sedans and SUVs.
That difference is significant.
For an established performance brand, engineering credentials and decades of motorsport history can already communicate what the badge represents. Genesis does not have that legacy to the same extent.
Design therefore carries more of the burden.
Magma has to communicate performance before customers experience the vehicle itself. The proportions, aerodynamics, interface and broader visual identity all become tools for explaining where Genesis intends to position its performance business.
The IDEA recognition for both the Magma GT Concept and Magma UI Design shows how that identity is being developed across physical and digital environments simultaneously.
Why a restaurant book matters to an automotive group
Perhaps the most unusual winner provides the strongest evidence of how far Hyundai Motor Group’s definition of design has expanded.
The Na Oh Korean Restaurant Book, created around the Korean restaurant inside Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Center Singapore (HMGICS), received Gold in the Branding category.
On the surface, a restaurant book has little to do with automobiles.
But HMGICS itself was never conceived simply as another vehicle factory. It combines manufacturing technology with customer experiences and cultural elements, providing a setting in which visitors encounter the Hyundai brand beyond the finished automobile.
Na Oh, developed in collaboration with Michelin three-star chef Corey Lee and connected with Korean artisans and culinary traditions, sits within that environment.
The book extends the experience further by translating the restaurant’s philosophy, Korean cultural references and visual identity into another medium.
For Hyundai Motor Group, projects like this indicate that branding is moving beyond advertisements and vehicle showrooms. Architecture, food, publishing, digital interfaces and physical spaces can all become points where consumers encounter the company.
That makes design the connective tissue between businesses that might otherwise appear unrelated.
Three brands, increasingly distinct design roles
There is another pattern inside the IDEA results.
Hyundai, Kia and Genesis are not simply producing variations of the same design strategy.
Hyundai is increasingly exploring mobility itself — from unconventional transportation concepts to spaces where new technologies can be experienced.
Kia’s recent work is closely tied to PBVs, digital interaction and flexible mobility platforms, reflecting its effort to rethink what commercial and multipurpose vehicles can become.
Genesis, meanwhile, is using design to sharpen its luxury identity while opening a new performance chapter through Magma.
The three brands still share technologies and platforms across Hyundai Motor Group, but their design roles are becoming more differentiated.
That distinction could become increasingly important as electrification reduces some of the mechanical differences that historically separated automotive brands.
When batteries, electric motors and software architectures become more standardized, design and user experience carry greater responsibility for giving each brand a recognizable identity.
Design becomes part of the technology strategy
The 16 IDEA awards should therefore be viewed as more than another collection of international design trophies.
They reflect how the role of automotive design itself is changing.
Cars are becoming digital devices. Commercial vehicles are turning into configurable service platforms. Manufacturing sites are becoming customer experience spaces. Mobility products are being designed around specific cities and communities rather than a single global template.
As those boundaries blur, Hyundai Motor Group appears to be expanding the role of its designers along with them.
The next stage of competition in the automotive industry will still involve making compelling vehicles. But increasingly, it will also involve designing what happens on the screen, how a mobility service works, what a physical space feels like and how all of those experiences connect back to a brand.
Hyundai Motor Group’s IDEA 2026 results offer a snapshot of that transition.
The automobile remains at the center of the business. The design challenge surrounding it is becoming much larger.
