Pirelli has been awarded the ADI International Compasso d’Oro Award, one of the most recognized prizes in industrial design, established in 1954. Thanks to its innovative technological features, the Pirelli P Zero E is the first tire ever to receive this prize, specifically in the Design for Mobility category. The ceremony took place during a special international edition of the Compasso d’Oro Awards, celebrating its 70th anniversary at Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan.
This year, the Compasso d’Oro Award was inspired by the Expo theme – Designing Future Society for our Lives – with Pirelli awarded in one of the key areas: Connecting Lives. This focuses on connecting people through the development of technologically advanced products with reduced environmental impact, such as the P Zero E: the first tire in the world designed with an unprecedented percentage of natural and recycled materials, particularly in the high-performance segment for which it is intended. As a perfect synthesis of industrial design, sustainable innovation, and technology, this tire represented a revolutionary turning point for the industry.
The Pirelli P Zero E was launched in 2023 as the first Ultra High Performance tire in the world with more than 55% bio-based and recycled materials, maintaining performance and safety even in challenging conditions such as wet asphalt. Performance, efficiency, and comfort are highlighted by a triple “Class A” score for wet grip, rolling resistance, and noise on the European tire label. This tire is designed to maximize electric and plug-in hybrid vehicle efficiency (with the capability of increasing mileage by up to 10% thanks to Elect technology) and is equipped as standard with Pirelli’s most advanced proprietary technologies including RunForward, which allows driving to continue even after a puncture. This is an invisible revolution that is nonetheless capable of setting a new direction for the development of future tires, claiming the “Tire of the Year” prize at the 2023 Automobile Club de France Awards.
As a result, P Zero E is at the forefront of Pirelli’s technological innovations alongside Cyber Tyre: the world’s first hardware and software system capable of collecting information from embedded sensors within the tires and processing that data via proprietary software and algorithms. This enables new vehicle functionalities, as well as integration with other digital environments such as smart roads and smart cities.
Piero Misani, Pirelli’s Executive Vice President and Chief Technical Officer, said: “This prestigious recognition celebrates Pirelli’s design excellence and the innovative scope of products like P Zero E, confirming the role of research and development as a driver of progress and sustainability. Our constant commitment in the field of R&D has made Pirelli a benchmark in the global industry for technological innovation and cutting-edge solutions for future tire development, thanks to the use of new materials with reduced environmental impact and the increasingly widespread use of advanced artificial intelligence throughout every phase.”
Pirelli’s history has intertwined several times with that of the ADI Compasso d’Oro Award, thanks to advertising campaigns from great names in graphic design, as well as iconic industrial design products. These have ranged from foam rubber toys, electromechanical clocks, and rubber flooring in the past to the Pirelli Foundation’s most recent projects. The ‘Rubber Soul’ exhibition, which won the 2013 Red Dot Design Award, was included in the ADI Design Index, while the ‘Publicity with a Capital P’ editorial project was nominated for the 2020 Award.
Together with this year’s other winners, the P Zero E will be featured as part of an exhibition in the Italian Pavilion, before entering the permanent collection of the ADI Design Museum in Milan. In line with the Expo theme – “Designing Future Society for Our Lives” – the P Zero E embodies a modern vision of mobility, connecting people and positioning itself as a benchmark for sustainability and circularity thanks to the use of recovered materials such as lignin. This tire was developed with data-driven and artificial intelligence-based technologies, involving all major Pirelli R&D centers worldwide as well as numerous collaborations with universities, specialized centers, and suppliers.
