Honda Wins At LAAS 2016 Design and Developer Challenge

Organizers of the Los Angeles Auto Show® and AutoMobility LA™revealed “Builders of Tomorrow,” an autonomous vehicle concept by Honda, Lego and Trigger Global, as the Judge’s Pickwinner in this year’s “Design & Developer Challenge.” The concept was presented on Wednesday, November 16, to an audience of media and industry professionals from around the world attending this year’s LA Auto Show’s AutoMobility LA event. In addition to the Judges’ Pick, participating teams will have two additional opportunities to win an honor. The Industry Pick award, offers more than 20,000 designers, automakers, journalists and other professionals the opportunity to screen the entrants’ concept videos on automobilityla.com and vote for their favorite team. The People’s Pick gives Los Angeles Auto Show attendees and design fans around the globe the opportunity to vote for their favorite team on laautoshow.com. Online voting will conclude on November 27.

Eleven leading automotive, entertainment and consumer brands formed five teams to collaborate around this year’s theme, “Autonomous Vehicles: A Redefined User Experience for 2050.” The teams, comprised of working designers and software developers, explored how the intersection of technology, data and connectivity have the potential to revolutionize a vehicle’s interior and exterior design characteristics for a new generation of passengers. This year’s winning team took a deep dive into what the 2050 autonomous vehicles would look like by opening up the Lego Creative Play Lab to children from various neighborhoods in Los Angeles. The children were tasked with designing their own self-driving vehicles to spur creative inspiration for the professionals. From there, the group of designers and developers transformed the youngster’s imaginative creations into realistic vehicle interior and exterior designs.

“The experience of partnering with Trigger and Lego greatly expanded the team’s creativity beyond my expectations,” said Ricky Hsu from Honda R&D Americas. “While Trigger reminded us that the world is taking a virtual turn, working with Lego reaffirmed the importance of holding an experience in your own two hands. From these parallels in thinking and listening to the voices of our future customers, we are honored to receive the Judge’s Pick award at AutoMobility LA’s Design & Developer Challenge.”

In addition to Honda/Lego/Trigger, the teams that participated in this year’s Design & Developer Challenge include:

CH Auto and Creative Mobile
Crayola and Qoros Auto
Fandango and Jaunt VR
Kiska and KTM

The designers and developers each developed a short film that answered the following questions:

How will the city of Los Angeles evolve to accommodate for autonomous transportation?
What kinds of experiences will people be able to have within autonomous vehicles?
What are the vehicles that enable these experiences like?
How will the vehicle and in-vehicle experience fundamentally transform people’s lives?

The winning team was selected based on aesthetics and function, creativity of concept, adaptability and customization potential, use of current technology, and the vehicle’s place on the road within a multi-modal transportation system. The expert judges also took into account the business model and the feasibility of the concept to enter the market by 2050 before selecting the winner of the 2016 Design & Developer Challenge Judges’ Pick award.

“Honda, Lego and Trigger Global unanimously impressed the judges with their conceptual future of self-driving cars, where the consumer experience was paramount,” said Chris Down, Senior Vice President & Global Brand General Manager for Hot Wheels at Mattel, Inc. “They gathered inspiration from children, the generation that will actively experience the technology. The presentation created a fun and optimistic future that 2050 car owners can look forward to in the years ahead.”

This year’s esteemed Design & Developer Challenge judging panel included:

Chris Down, Senior Vice President & Global Brand General Manager, Hot Wheels at Mattel, Inc.
Danny Stillion, Partner & Executive Design Director, IDEO
Gabriel Schlumberger, Executive Director of Creative, Disney Consumer Products & Interactive Media
John S. Couch, Vice President of UX & Design, Hulu
Margaret Wies, Head Holistic User Experience, Volkswagen AG
Richard Titus, Senior Vice President of Customer Experience, Samsung Research America
Stewart Reed, Transportation Design Department Chair, Art Center College of Design

“This cross-industry collaboration is where the future of the auto industry lives,” said Bryan Biniak, Nokia Growth Partners EIR, AutoMobility LA Advisory Board Member and Emcee for the 2016 Design & Developer Challenge. “It was an honor to generate dialogue on the future of mobility and work with such a strong group of creative judges and teams at AutoMobility LA.”

AutoMobility LA is the culmination of a multi-year evolution of the LA Auto Show’s Connected Car Expo and its Press & Trade Days into a trade show designed exclusively for the new automotive industry. The four-day, annual event brings together the entire “new mobility ecosystem” comprised of automakers, media, tech companies, designers, developers, startups, investors, dealers, government officials, academics, analysts, etc.

Sponsored by The Foundry and Lacks Enterprises, the 2016 Design & Developer Challenge entries will be on display on the South Hall Terrace of the Los Angeles Convention Center from Nov. 18-27. Tickets to this year’s Los Angeles Auto Show are now on sale at laautoshow.com, where you can also view this year’s design challenge videos.