For the very first time, a tyre – the Pirelli P Zero E – has scooped one of the world’s most prestigious design awards, recognising its innovation and technological excellence
Milan, September 5, 2025 – Pirelli has been given the ADI International Compasso d’Oro Award, one of the most recognised prizes in the field of industrial design, which was established in 1954. Thanks to its innovative technological features, the Pirelli P Zero E is the first tyre 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, which is 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 is about connecting people through the development of technologically advanced products featuring reduced environmental impact, such as the P Zero E: the first tyre in the world designed with an unprecedented percentage of natural and recycled materials, especially in the high-performance segment for which it is intended. As a perfect synthesis of industrial design, sustainable innovation, and technology, this tyre represented a revolutionary turning point for the industry.
The Pirelli P Zero E was launched in 2023 as the first Ultra High Performance tyre 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 tyre label. This tyre is designed to maximise electric and plug-in hybrid vehicle efficiency (with the capability of increasing mileage by up to 10% thanks to Elect technology[1]) 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 tyres, claiming the “Tyre of the Year” prize at the 2023 Automobile Club de France Awards.
As a result, P Zero E is at the vanguard 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 tyres 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.
Collecting the award, 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 tyre 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 AND THE COMPASSO D’ORO
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 2013, was included in the ADI Design Index, while the ‘Publicity with a Capital P’ editorial project was nominated for the 2020 Award.
THE P ZERO E AT EXPO 2025 OSAKA
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 tyre was developed with data-driven and artificial intelligence-based technologies, involving all major Pirelli R&D centres worldwide as well as numerous collaborations with universities, specialised centres and suppliers.
[1] Comparison between PIRELLI SCORPION™ ELECT™ and PIRELLI SCORPION™ tyres, size 235/60/R18, measuring battery range gain derived from a reduction in rolling resistance in the ELECT™ version. Testing was conducted on a Volkswagen iD4 under instrumented conditions at a constant speed of 50 km/h over a range of 550 km. Source: Internal Pirelli R&D tests conducted between March and June 2022.