Three-Wheeled Vehicle Aims to Change Commuting Forever

Imagine if you will, a three-wheeled motorcycle enclosed in the thin shell of a car, a roll cage worthy of Nascar supporting its frame, and with all the comforts bestowed on the less daring drivers out there—air conditioning, heat, and an opulent sense of safety. But, it has all benefits owned by two-wheeled riders zooming down the express lane with their uncanny ability to park in even the tightest of spaces. Throw in an electric-gas hybrid engine and 100 mpg, and that space-age vehicle you’re picturing may resemble what the team at Green Lite Motors is cooking up.

According to Tim Miller, CEO of Green Lite Motors, the idea behind the project is to bring some good sense to commuting. While driving alone in a Volvo Station Wagon big enough to seat seven, a few years back, he had something of an epiphany, and as he gazed out his window at other drivers wasting gas and space like himself, he decided to do something about it.

“There has got to be a better way … there is definitely an opportunity for vehicles designed to carry just two people instead of seven,” Miller said in a phone interview.

Going electric seemed the most practical solution for fuel efficiency, yet after looking at the cost of batteries, he and an assembled team decided to go hybrid—or more precisely, a hybrid of a hybrid. The current prototype has three fuel modes a driver can switch between, including hybrid, electric-only, and a “sports mode” that uses both gas and electric simultaneously to push the vehicle’s 85 mph speeds.

They also decided to give it three wheels, and keep it enclosed, like a car. “Part of it was a minimalist philosophy of can we get the job done with less than four wheels,” Miller said. The three-wheel solution would become one of the more difficult parts of the design, but in the end, also one of the vehicle’s key aspects.

The reason an everyday motorcycle can’t have an enclosure is that drivers needs to put their feet down when they stop, or it will fall over. Going with three wheels, and a thin frame, also has its problems, however. With less than four wheels, a driver and the vehicle need to lean into turns or the vehicle risks flipping over.

To solve this, Green Lite Motors built what they call “Smart Stand Up,” which is basically a hydraulic system that holds the vehicle upright when it stops, and makes it naturally lean into turns.

“There have been other vehicles that lean into turns, but they would force you into the turns, they push you into the turn, and that can make for a somewhat unnatural feeling,” Miller said. “What we’ve done is developed a system where the electronics allow the vehicle to be either free leaning or in the stand up mode.”

The result is a vehicle that rests somewhere between a car and a motorcycle. Drivers can get the feel of the road by leaning into turns and zipping past traffic, and taking small parking spaces; but they also can keep on their suits, not wear a helmet, and enjoy some reassuring safety features.

A working prototype so far shows the shell of the vehicle, resembling a motorcycle with the roll cage of a racecar. Miller says another video will be released soon, showing off that same prototype but with an early exterior “to give people a feeling of what the shape and size really is.”

They haven’t done any crash testing yet (they only have one prototype, so smashing it to bits is a bit further down the list), but they’re using software in the meantime to simulate what the vehicle can take. They’re leveraging virtual prototyping tools from Autodesk, one of the leaders in 3-D design, engineering, and entertainment software.

The prototyping software lets them find weak points in the design and run tests to see if the vehicle can hold up to the stresses of the road. “If we can figure something out in software rather than building everything, that’s great news for us,” Miller said.

He adds that 10 or 15 years ago, it would have been impossible for a small company like Green Lite Motors, with only seven core employees, to build a sophisticated vehicle on a small budget, but software let them go “beyond what you can imagine, effectively, pretty quickly.”

Although once everything is said and done they plan to market the vehicle to commuters, Miller believes “a lot of folks are going to buy this just for fun.”

They’re even working on a design where drivers can pop off the doors in the summer to feel the wind of the highway. But he also hopes people’s interest goes beyond that, and shows an electric, minimalist vehicle is “a whole future of how you can get around in a metropolitan area.”