With electric vehicles ramping up around the world, the South Korean tyre manufacturer has committed most thoroughly to a specialist range, starting with its summer tyre
Welcome to the fourth edition of the WhatTyre Tyre of the Year Awards and Buyers Guide. Within these pages, our editorial team, which has more than 50 years’ collective experience in writing about tyres and the tyre industry, has selected 78 outstanding tyres across nine categories that represent the best products available for your car. While this sounds like a lot, bear in mind the vast array of brands and products available in the UK’s replacement tyre sector: since WhatTyre began, more than 700 tyre brands have been available in tyre retail outlets around the country. In 2024, 17 brands have been recognised for the quality of their products, including the world’s most recognisable tyre marques and several sub-premium brands with which general motorists may not already be familiar.
WhatTyre wants above all to raise the level of conversation about tyres. Too often this highly technical product, the subject of huge research and development operations, which has a massive influence on automotive performance, the sustainability of mobility, and road safety, is underrated as a distress purchase made in haste. As a leading supplier of tyre product advice on the web, WhatTyre is designed to offer a way for the average driver to ensure they make a wise decision when they change tyres. With a visit to our site or a look through these pages, we are confident that drivers can get a more informed perspective on tyres, which they can use to navigate the often bewildering array of products available to buy online, or to have a better conversation with their garage about what tyres are best for them to fit.
WhatTyre Tyre of the Year 2024
Various themes have developed in the four years we have been choosing products to give our top award to; new tyres that somehow exemplify a particularly important subsection of the market. These products defined their segments as the top-performing tyres supporting important and growing parts of our automotive market.
This year, our focus has turned to the electric car segment, arguably the biggest revolution in personal mobility since Ford’s production processes extended car ownership to the masses. As you will read in the Electric Car Tyre of the Year segment, tyre-makers have been refining their approach to the EV sector for years, and our 2024 Tyre of the Year feels like a tipping point in this process. EVs offer some significantly different challenges for tyres. Compared to conventional internal combustion engine cars, EVs are heavier, transmit torque to the road far less progressively, and have almost silent engines. This means tyres need to be harder wearing, more grippy, and quieter running, while EV drivers are also likely to want a tyre that helps to maximise range and even one that can demonstrate sustainability in its provenance.
The WhatTyre Tyre of the Year 2024 is the Hankook iON evo.
South Korean manufacturer Hankook is positioned as the newest brand to challenge the historical global premiums – it would already, with some justification, describe itself as a premium brand. While other brands have dipped their toes into specialist EV tyres with a single product or added specific technologies to existing tyres to make them more suitable for fitment on EVs, Hankook’s announcement of a full new range of specialist tyres for electric cars under the iON brand family was a bold step.
The Hankook iON evo is the centrepiece of this range, a summer EV tyre built from the ground up to meet the needs of EVs. The range also includes tyres for performance cars (iON GT), winter tyres (iON i*cept), an all-season EV tyre (iON FlexClimate) and SUV-focused variations, adding up to a fuller specialist EV range than any other manufacturer. While Hankook supplies a comprehensive range of tyres for the car and commercial sectors, the company has made its EV tyres a focal point of its operations, including eye-catching supply deals to the most visible electric motorsport series, like Formula E. It is fair to say that Hankook is therefore at the forefront of tyre suppliers for this revolutionary mobility sector.
Hankook iON evo (Photo: Hankook)
