Life, says Markus Scholten, is not a car commercial: All weirdly empty streets and fantasy mountain adventures, drivers and passengers having a ball, often backed by a nostalgic boomer soundtrack.
For Scholten, real life is what any Los Angeleno knows all too well: hours stuck in soul-crushing traffic, Monday through Friday, with only podcasts to allay the tedium.
The Trinova is Scholten’s idea of sweet relief. It’s a powerful three-wheel motorcycle that automatically leans into corners for secure control, with an enclosed two-passenger cockpit. Because the Trinova is narrower than Harleys, Honda Gold Wings, or other sizable bikes, it could split lanes in California and other states where that’s legal, saving time and trimming emissions. Scholten figures that a commuter in Los Angeles, or a similarly gridlocked city, could save as many as 180 hours a year in time now wasted in traffic.
The South Africa–born engineer and designer worked with Germany’s Karmann on convertible projects for Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, and others. After Fisker Automotive went belly-up in 2013, Scholten—who was leading chassis and convertible-top development for Fisker’s Karma Sunset S plug-in-hybrid—landed a job interview at Tesla’s design studio in Hawthorne, Calif.
[embedded content] – YouTube Trinova
Scholten was demoralized by the drive away from the Tesla studio but also inspired. “The return trip was a parking lot, all the way home,” and he cast envious looks at motorcycles zipping by between stationary cars on the clogged arteries of Highway 405. “I thought, ‘What’s wrong with this picture? I can ride my bicycle quicker than this,” he says.
Scholten had been a budding professional bicycle racer, until a crash injury ended that dream. But even as a teenager, he had been fascinated by the Lean Machine, General Motors’ futuristic motorcycle from 1982. The audacious concept claimed 120-mile-per-gallon (2 liters-per-100-kilometer) fuel economy from a frugal, 185-cc Honda engine, connected to boat-trailer tires through a five-speed gearbox. Even in that benighted time, GM’s promo film for the Lean Machine identified a fundamental weakness of our transportation system: “Car after car, designed for four to six passengers, with only a driver” aboard.
Scholten’s wife urged him to get to work building the motorcycle he’d been sketching for years.
Three Wheels Can Be Better Than Four
“The idea had always been in the back of my head,” Scholten says. That idea is to combine a motorcycle’s agility and efficiency, but in an all-weather package that’s safe and comfortable for people who wouldn’t be caught dead on two wheels. For the teardrop-shaped Trinova, an 85-centimeter width is a bit slimmer than that of traditional touring bikes.
An initial prototype featured a 1,000-cc engine from a racy, Italian Aprilia RSV motorcycle. The company, based in Newport Beach, Calif., has since built three more prototypes at a shop in nearby Costa Mesa, powered by dual inboard electric motors from Zero Motorcycles. A roughly 10-to-12 kilowatt-hour battery should provide 160 to 220 kilometers (100 to 135 miles) of driving range. Leveraging Scholten’s experience with convertible cars, a folding or removable top lets in the sun and breeze.
Three-wheelers have failed to make a noticeable dent in the marketplace, though models like the luridly styled Polaris Slingshot have a devoted niche of fans. Scholten believes there’s genuine demand, especially for three-wheelers with personality and performance. With a husky 65 kilowatts per motor (about 175 total horsepower—roughly the same as a Mazda Miata, but in a much smaller chassis) and an estimated weight below 340 kilograms (750 pounds), the Trinova is designed to make time and save time. Scholten says that emphasis on performance is what separates his Tilt-a-Whirl from econo-models like the U.K.’s Carver, whose general anemia and sluggish 80 km/h (50 mph) top speed proved a quick route to bankruptcy. The Trinova, Scholten projects, will have a 190 km/h (120 mph) top speed.
“I don’t want the Trinova to look like a dorkmobile, another low-speed urban pipe dream,” he says. “I want it to be fast, to do doughnuts, to look cool. There’s no fun in a slow motorcycle.”
A sensor monitors speed and steering angle to calculate the appropriate amount of lean in turns, at angles up to 55 degrees, which is roughly what a Moto GP racer might achieve in a tight turn. Instead of centrifugal force shoving passengers (or cargo, or beverages) to the outboard side—the disorienting feeling you get as a car rounds a sharp turn—that lean can be fun or even thrilling.
“It’s a phenomenal feeling, so natural and intuitive,” Scholten says of the experience. “Leaning into turns is what humans do, whether you’re running, surfing, cycling, or riding.”
Lidar Could Make Lane Splitting Safer
As speeds and wheel inertia increase, the bike’s hydraulically activated lean angle changes accordingly, ensuring that the bike can’t tip over, whether at high speed or easing out of a parking space. Scholten’s current, open-source, software remains a bit slow, but “the bike still stays upright and does what I want it to do. Irrespective of any road surface, the bike stands vertically.”
Prototypes adopt a steel-tube chassis, but production models would feature an aluminum space frame, with steel-reinforced doors and a roll cage, and a molded composite body.
Scholten is in talks with a European supplier on a lidar unit that could measure gaps between vehicles and assure Trinova riders there’s room to safely pass between. With the right software and sensing, that system could monitor surrounding traffic and alert the rider if a car is about to veer into its path. Scholten sees further potential in a small, range-extender battery that users could “pull along like a Samsonite,” recharge at a home or office, and plug in to add extra miles.
After a fallout with one partner, followed by a successful legal fight to reclaim his intellectual property from another potential investor, Scholten is looking to kick off production near the end of 2026, with an initial run of about 100 largely hand-built Trinovas. If the project gets off the ground, Scholten’s “crazy dream” is to take a Trinova to the legendary, notoriously dangerous Isle of Man TT motorcycle race in the United Kingdom and attempt to set a lap record for three-wheelers. At least no cars will get in his way.
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