Ryvid’s website confidently blasts, “We are Ryvid,” but who is really behind that statement? At the helm is Tran, who grew up in one of the largest motorbike markets in the world — Vietnam. Before moving to the United States at 10 years old, Tran lived in the tourism-heavy region of Dalat in a household that traveled by moped. While the heavy focus on two-wheeled transportation in Vietnam may seem unusual to a U.S. native, when Tran moved to California and experienced the frustratingly heavy traffic flow of Los Angeles, he further understood the motorbike culture of his home country.
According to Tran’s LinkedIn profile, in 2007, he joined General Motors’ design team as an exterior design intern in Michigan. Within four months, he was in California at BMW’s Newbury facility with the same title. After a brief stint in Tokyo with Toyota’s exterior design team, he returned to the States and joined Honda, where he remained for just under two years, initially as a project lead on a now-scrapped unnamed electric vehicle project.
Over the years, traveling through Los Angeles’ congested streets, Tran carried an appreciation for the efficiency of motorbikes. As it grew, so too did a budding desire to push the industry into greener territories. By 2021, near the tail-end of a five-year employment at ICON Aircraft, Tran was ready to bring his vision to life and start work on an initial prototype product, Ryvid’s Anthem.
