zForce Drive,  the cooperation between Autoliv Inc and Neonode Inc, has been awarded the prestigious Red Dot Design award.

zForce Drive, the ground breaking gesture- and touch-enabled steering wheel focuses on safety and usability in the future high tech car, and is aimed at giving the driver an unsurpassed driving experience with minimal driver distraction. 
“We are very proud to receive this award as a recognition of the innovative force of Neonode and the cooperation with Autoliv that brings us world leading knowledge in automotive safety and quality,” said Thomas Eriksson, CEO, Neonode. 
Autoliv, with the vision of ‘Saving More Lives’, sees this recognition from Red Dot as yet another example of how saving lives is both a high tech and creative business, as well as a lucrative consumer market. 

“Consumers of today and tomorrow increasingly request both safety and excitement when looking at automotive content. The zForce Drive cooperation is a perfect merger of both these aspects, and we are all very proud of this recognition from Red Dot and of our cooperation with Neonode,” added Johan Löfvenholm, Group vice-president (Product & Process Development), Autoliv. 

What is zForce Drive?

The increasing amount of technology being incorporated into cars leads to an increasing safety issue due to driver distraction. zForce Drive Steering Wheel allows the driver to keep both hands on the steering wheel and the eyes on the road.
The sensors allow the car to know exactly where on the wheel the driver has his hands at any given moment. It’s a scalable and versatile HMI toolbox that can integrate seamlessly with the center stack and Head Up Display – or even replace the centre stack altogether. This opens up new degrees of freedom for innovative cockpit design and enables a safer and more intuitive user experience.

The concept, which was first showcased at CES 2015 in Las Vegas earlier this year, is to be presented at the 66th annual IAA Cars show in Frankfurt, September 17-27 (Hall 3.1, Booth B41).