YAMAHA has revealed that it will be adding to its range of leaning three-wheeled machines following the unveiling of the MT-09-powered Niken for 2018.

Speaking at the company’s announcement of its annual business results, Yamaha President and CEO Yoshihiro Hidaka said: “Our company is working on various initiatives with the theme of the growing world of personal mobility in the current midterm plan. This is a product line up of LMW leaning multi-wheel.

“Since the launch of Tricity commuter in 2014 we continued R&D activities and in the last year’s Tokyo Motor Show we have presented large size sports model Niken, which will be launched in the market this year.

“Not just limited to these two models we will be expanding customer base with new values of LMW.”

Video of the presentation can be seen here: https://youtu.be/yJlPFwE-lJo?t=1031

An accompanying slide at the presentation showed a blurred-out model sitting between the existing Tricity and Niken machines, suggesting that the new bike will be a mid-sized variation on the theme.

Japanese magazines have recently suggested that a Niken derivative powered by the 321cc parallel twin from the MT-03 and YZF-R3 (also sold in 250cc form in Asia), will be the basis of the next leaning Yamaha trike.

That might make sense in Europe, as it would provide the firm with a leaning three-wheeler fitting the A2 licence category, sitting between the learner-legal Tricity and the full-licence-only Niken. The Niken, with 115PS, is too powerful to be legally restricted to the A2-caterogy limit of 35kW/47PS.