QJMotor Patent Shows 700cc Triple

China’s QJMotor already has a bafflingly broad array of bikes in production—more than 100 different models at the last count—and the number seems to be rising by the week as additional machines are launched. But while it has singles, parallel twins, V-twins, V-4s, and inline-fours in its range, the company doesn’t yet make a three-cylinder bike. That is a situation that could change soon if the designs seen in a new patent document reach production.

The patent application shows an inline three-cylinder engine, although it looks like there’s an attempt to hide its layout by deleting sections of the drawings that would make the layout immediately obvious. In each picture, the cylinder head is missing, so we just get to see the bottom end, and the deck is blanked out so it’s not as simple as just counting the visible cylinders underneath. Even so, it’s not too hard to see that the layout of the coolant channels and the studs is that of a three-cylinder engine.

QJMotor has been able to hide these elements of the engine in the patent drawings because the patent itself doesn’t specifically relate to the engine design. Instead it’s about the automated-manual transmission that’s attached to it. Rather like the Yamaha Y-AMT setup, the QJMotor semi-auto uses two external actuators (one for the clutch and one for the gear shifter) to step in and do the jobs that would normally be undertaken by your left hand and left foot. The clutch actuator in particular is visible in the drawings, mounted just behind the clutch cover. It’s an electromechanical actuator similar to a design in another patent from 2023, and QJMotor has already launched one production 2025 model, the SRV 300A V-twin cruiser, using much the same idea.

The three-cylinder engine in the new QJMotor patent isn’t entirely unfamiliar, either. QJMotor might not make such an engine, but another Chinese company, Zontes, launched its first 700cc triples in 2023. Those bikes don’t have a semi-auto transmission, but the engine design—itself inspired by, but not a direct copy of, the Yamaha MT-09 three-cylinder—is nearly identical to the motor shown in the new QJMotor document. Given the nature of the Chinese motorcycle industry, where near-identical engines are often made by multiple different manufacturers, it wouldn’t be surprising to see QJMotor launch a bike with the same essential engine design as the Zontes machines.

If the engine is as similar to the Zontes design as it appears to be in the drawings, then we can expect a 699cc capacity with a 70mm bore and 60.6mm stroke, creating peaks of 100 hp and 56 lb.-ft. of torque, and given how rapidly QJMotor is expanding its model range it could be only a matter of months before the company launches its first triple.