Yamaha hints at new concept car, reveals motorcycle concepts

The company announced that it will have 20 vehicles altogether, six of which will be revealed to the world for the first time, and another four will make their debut in Japan for the first time. The vehicles at the booth won't all be pure two-wheeled motorcycles either. At least one is a funky four-wheeled motorcycle/car cross-breed. Yamaha also says that it will have an "automobile design concept model." The company didn't give any further details on it. We certainly hope that it will be as cool as the Sports Ride, its three-cylinder, mid-engine, 1,650-pound sports car from the 2015 Tokyo show.

As it turns out, Yamaha hasn't yet revealed many of its debut models for this year's Tokyo show, but it did reveal some of its concepts. The two newest are the MOTOROiD motorcycle and the MWC-4 "leaning multi-wheel" or LMW for short.

The MOTOROiD is impressive in design alone. It looks futuristic and rugged thanks to the thick, simple components. A cool touch are the giant cylindrical battery cells mounted at the base of the frame. They're like giant double-As (septuple-As?). Each part also looks organic with the various curves found throughout. That may be on purpose, since Yamaha says the MOTOROiD has AI that lets it recognize its owner and even interact "in other capacities like a living creature."

The MWC-4 is a little less ambitious from a software and tech perspective. It's still interesting, though. It uses an electric motor and has a gasoline range-extender. Yamaha says its design is inspired by both motorcycles and musical instruments. It apparently is designed to have a really comfortable ride because of something called "altitude-control technology." We'll have to take their word on both of those, but we bet it's interesting to drive, looking like something between a Toyota i-Road and a Renault Twizy.

Aside from these two vehicles, Yamaha also revealed a concept electric bicycle similar to the BMW ActiveHybrid shown earlier this week, as well as an updated version of its Motobot. In case you forgot, the Motobot is a humanoid robot the company created to ride a motorcycle. It's a little creepy in some ways. Yamaha gave few details about either, but apparently Motobot is now capable of high-speed riding on a racetrack. So the company must be getting close to its goal of taking on Valentino Rossi.