Piaggio Airbag-equipped MP3 in Development

For well over a decade, Honda has been alone in offering a motorcycle equipped with an airbag. Two generations of Gold Wing have been offered with the airbag option, but in the near future a much more affordable option will join the fray in the form of Piaggio’s MP3.

Piaggio showed a prototype airbag-equipped MP3 530 at last November’s EICMA show in Milan, and now the company has filed a patent application for the machine that shows more detail on how it’s intended to operate. Given the MP3′s three-wheeled layout and its clear intention to tempt buyers who might not be comfortable swapping their cars for two wheels, the adoption of car-style airbag technology as an additional safety feature makes a huge amount of sense.

The patent closely matches the prototype seen on Piaggio’s EICMA stand, featuring a wide airbag cover below the bars, just in front of the rider’s knees. The sheer size of that cover—much bigger than the equivalent on Honda’s Gold Wing—hints that the bag inside may also be larger than expected. The patent document, which gives a first look at what hides behind that cover, suggests that’s exactly the case.

In terms of the airbag itself, the technology isn’t dissimilar to those used in cars. There’s an inflator (marked No. 7) which is a gas generator, and while the document doesn’t go into detail about that part of the technology, it appears to be the same sort of electrically triggered chemical system used in automotive airbags. Exactly like the airbags in cars, the elongated cover has a hidden split line that tears when the bag is triggered. That split line is shaped to allow a section of the cover to peel downward, creating a deflector to direct the bag itself up toward the rider’s upper body and head.

The airbag itself is huge, and the patent shows it could be stored either folded or rolled up behind the cover (Figures 5a and 5b). When inflated, the bag essentially creates a wall of inflated fabric in front of the rider, absorbing energy before there’s the chance to impact anything hard.

As with the Gold Wing’s airbag, the system is designed to work specifically in frontal crashes, with the most likely scenario—illustrated in the patent—being a car failing to see the bike and pulling out into its path. Just like the Gold Wing, the MP3 is particularly well-suited to an airbag in this situation. It has a relatively long wheelbase and low center of gravity, making it less likely to flip the rider over the car, and the bike’s style and seating position means the rider is likely to be sitting in a predictable position at the time of impact. On other types of bikes, particularly sportbikes, riders move around a lot and, thanks to their high center of gravity, tend to flip forward in a frontal impact, making airbags much harder to implement.

Piaggio’s patent and the fact it showed a prototype of the machine are a clear indication that this is an ongoing project, and one that’s extremely likely to reach production in the near future. The airbag itself and the electronics required to trigger it aren’t likely to add a huge amount to the cost, and could be enough to persuade wavering customers to ditch their cars in favor of a leaning three-wheeler.