The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2025
Honda's see-through Fastport eQuad delivery quad wins Red Dot Best of the Best 2025
Honda rethinks last-mile delivery as a pedal-assisted eQuad with transparent body panels, winning Red Dot's top design-concept prize.
Honda Motor Co., Ltd.
What it had to solve
Urban logistics last-mile delivery needs vehicles that are more flexible than vans and can carry more than traditional cargo vehicles, while the sense of safety on shared roads is a key concern.
How it works
August 2025: Honda announced that eQuad, launched by its new last-mile logistics business Fastport, won the highest honor of the Red Dot Award: Design Concept, Best of the Best 2025. eQuad is a single-person electric-assist four-wheeled vehicle: the rider pedals, and a pedal-by-wire system electronically transmits pedal input to the electric drive system, providing a smooth, quiet, zero-emission riding experience while being able to use bicycle lanes in urban congestion.
What truly turns it from a functional product into a design proposition is transparency. Honda uses the bicycle as a styling motif, but uses transparent materials in the places where mutual visibility is most needed: a transparent windshield lets the rider see the road surface and pedestrians, and also lets pedestrians see the rider from outside; a translucent cargo box reduces visual volume, making the vehicle less 'space-taking' in the streetscape. The designers' starting point was not to hide the machine, but to make the vehicle actively yield sightlines in all directions.
The vehicle is expected to enter mass production at Honda's U.S. factory in summer 2026. In the same edition of the awards, Honda's EV Fun Concept, EV Urban Concept, and V3 engine concept film each won a Red Dot award, and the head of the design center attributed two consecutive years of Best of the Best wins to reconfiguring the mode of mobility itself, not just styling.
Why it lands
- Use transparent materials to solve mutual visibility between riders and pedestrians, turning safety concerns directly into a design asset rather than adding sensors.
- Pedal-by-wire gives electric vehicles for bicycle lanes a new driving quality, defining a new category.
- Logistics vehicles are no longer designed as 'shrunk-down trucks,' but are redeveloped from right-of-way and usage scenarios.
- As the flagship product of the new business Fastport, the design award became the first credibility endorsement before mass production.
What it did
eQuad won the Red Dot Award: Design Concept highest prize Best of the Best 2025; in the same round, Honda also won Red Dot awards for EV Fun, the EV Urban concept car, and the V3 engine film, for four Red Dot awards in total.
What you can take
When fear and poor visibility block acceptance, transparent vehicle bodies are more direct than sensors and warnings, making safety a design language.
Since then
Honda won four awards in a row at the 2025 Red Dot, and its design center won Best of the Best for the second consecutive year. Fastport subsequently advanced mass production in North America as planned, and eQuad became a landmark product for Honda in opening a micro-mobility logistics business beyond cars and motorcycles.
Sources
- Fastport eQuad, Flagship Product from New Honda Business Wins “Red Dot: Best of the Best 2025” Award
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