Tilting three-wheeler

Because this is an emerging field with many different vehicle configurations, many different individual contributors, and not yet any clearly dominant technology, there is a great deal of potentially confusing terminology in use: The potential benefits of tilting, compared to the rigid alternative, include: The drawbacks of tilting, compared to the rigid alternative, include: As with tricycles in general, the two main wheel layouts are: Twinned Wheel Rule: In many countries aligned to EU regulations, an arrangement of two wheels on the same axle [not necessarily maintained co-axial], is treated as one wheel provided they are spaced no further apart than 460 mm (18 in) between contact patch centers.

If the vehicle is designed to accommodate a second rider, the seating is usually arranged in tandem to maintain the narrow profile, as on the CLEVER.

Power may come from the rider, as on the Tripendo, from batteries and electric motors, as on the Toyota i-Road, or from conventional internal combustion engines, as on the Yamaha Tricity.

[11] In all cases, the tilting mechanism may simply be lockable to facilitate keeping the vehicle upright when stopped or parked.

[19] A prototype tilting multi-track free leaning vehicle was developed in 1984 that employs automatic countersteering and does not require any balancing skills.

[20] A larger range of tilting three-wheelers has appeared in the recent years and use manually controlled countersteering like a motorbike, such as the Piaggio MP3 or Yamaha Niken.

If the steering axis is not vertical, however, the directional stability above about 10 mph (16 km/h) is very strongly controlled by the dynamic forces.