Wild Yamaha Concept Uses Plasma Discharge Instead of a Fairing

Few brands tap into their Japanese heritage quite as much as Yamaha does, and be it the Faster Sons custom builds, or the Dark Side of Japan hyper nakeds, the Iwata brand is clearly and rightfully proud of its roots.

But nothing quite encapsulates Japanese culture quite like Anime, the Japanese film-making phenomenon that stems from the world of futuristic cyber-punk comic books. It’s a world that Yamaha is tapping into with its latest concept bike, a machine that is supposed to look to the future of transportation, showing what two-wheeled wonders could exist 100 years in the future.

The bike is thanks in part to a collaboration with the TV streaming service Netflix, which has, alongside Yamaha, created a show called Tokyo Override, and the bike, which is called Y/AI is the star of the show.

Set in Tokyo 100 years in the future, the show explores how Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been integrated into daily life, and looks at how urban living has been affected by automation. The show also features big names from Yamaha's more recent past, with the R1 and VMax also featuring in the show. Those bikes have been recreated in detail in the series, with Yamaha helping the production out with 3D models and renderings, along with images, and sound recordings of the internal combustion-powered machines.

Y/AI though, is unlike anything we’ve seen before, and features wacky-looking tyres which can be illuminated, and a jumping feature that allows the bike to bunny-hop when it hits a bump. It also features a system called plasma discharge, that passes an electrical current through the air around the bike, creating the effect of a fairing when in fact the bike is totally naked.

It is though just a concept, and while it’s an interesting take on what the future of motorcycling could be, we’ll stick to peddling an R1 around a track, and a proper fairing will do just fine for that! 

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