Three-wheeler
Often such vehicles are owner-constructed using a portion of a rear-engine, rear-drive Volkswagen Beetle in combination with a motorcycle front end.
A Conti 6 hp Tri-car competed in (but did not complete) a 1907 Peking to Paris race sponsored by a French newspaper, Le Matin.
This concept (Dragonfly Three Wheeler[6]) claims both stability and traction (two driven wheels), as well as a unique driving experience.
Having one wheel in front and two in the rear for power reduces the cost of the steering mechanism but greatly decreases lateral stability when cornering while braking.
When the single wheel is in the front (the "delta" form, as in a child's pedal tricycle), the vehicle is inherently unstable in a braking turn, as the combined tipping forces at the center of mass from turning and braking can rapidly extend beyond the triangle formed by the contact patches of the wheels.
Should the point at which this line intersects the ground move outside of the boundary formed by connecting the tyre contact patches together (a rectangle for a four-wheeled car, or a triangle for a trike) then the vehicle will tip and eventually fall over.
Three-wheeled battery powered designs include: Here are three notable examples of solar-powered three wheelers; two race cars, the Infinium and the Sky Ace TIGA, and a vehicle planned for production, the Aptera.
Ashiya University's Sky Ace TIGA achieved 91.332 kilometres per hour (56.751 mph) at Shimojishima Airport, in Miyakojima, Okinawa, Japan, to win the Guinness World Record, on 20 August 2014.
[8] It took the record from another three-wheeler, Sunswift IV, designed and built at the University of New South Wales in Australia,[9] by a margin of almost 3 km/h.
Due to the incidence of injuries and deaths related to their use, a 10-year ban, entirely voluntary for manufacturers, was placed on the sale of new three-wheeled all-terrain vehicles in the United States in January 1988.
In a search conducted by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, it was determined that "no inherent flaw was found in the three wheel design".
[citation needed] In the U.S, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration defines and regulates three-wheeled vehicles as motorcycles.
[16] However, in 2015 a bill was introduced in Congress that would prevent some three wheeled vehicles from being classified as motorcycles in the United States, instead creating a new classification for "autocycles".
"[19] Indiana defines it as "a three (3) wheeled motor vehicle in which the operator and passenger ride in a completely or partially enclosed seating area that is equipped with:(1) a rollcage or roll hoops; (2) safety belts for each occupant; and (3) antilock brakes;and is designed to be controlled with a steering wheel and pedals.
