Geelong’s advanced wheel manufacturer Carbon Revolution is quietly developing a foothold in the electric vehicle market.
The one-piece carbon fibre wheel manufacturer has revealed it now has four EV-based programs under way – up from zero a year ago.
While the partners on the EV-focused wheel projects have not been publicly revealed, the global transition to electric vehicles is an exciting potential market for Carbon Revolution.
Carbon Revolution’s wheels have mostly graced high-end performance cars such as some Ferraris, the Ford GT500 and Chevrolet’s forthcoming Corvette Z06, but for an EV, the goal is more about range.
In an interview with technology website Ars Technica, Carbon Revolution founder Ashley Denmead talked about a wheel’s aerodynamics being more important than its weight when considering EV applications.
“We can have unique wheel designs that are very aerodynamic front faces that are quite closed without being really heavy,” Denmead, Carbon Rev’s Engineering and Design Director, was quoted as saying,
“If you do those designs in metals, you generally get, really, a heavy wheel, because they’ve got minimum thicknesses. And if they’re casting those wheels, you can’t have thin features, because you get cold shots and things like that.
“Whereas obviously with carbon-fiber manufacturing, you can have very thin shells if you like or very thin features that are just like wings on a wheel that have no real structural integrity behind them, and you get the aerodynamic performance you want.”
An added benefit is that carbon wheels don’t transmit as much noise as their metal counterparts, so the overall driving experience is quieter.
The Ars Technica report says a carbon-fibre EV wheel could increase efficiency by around 5 percent as well as cutting noise by around 5 decibels.
You can hear more about Carbon Revolution’s journey when CEO Jake Dingle talks to the 2022 Technology and Innovation Summit.
Book your tickets to the Technology & Innovation Summit here
