Featherweight carbon fiber wheels may have stamps of approval from Ford, GM and Porsche, but large swathes of the automotive world are still unconvinced they have much of a future. Enthusiasts in all areas of expertise, from Facebook commentators to Gordon Murray, believe their weight savings don’t justify their extreme cost, and they’re too flimsy for real-world use.

Ash Denmead, Carbon Revolution’s Director of Engineering and Design, couldn’t disagree more strongly. Not only does he see carbon fiber wheels as a strong competitor to traditional alloy wheels, but he thinks they increase efficiency enough to make them essential for everything from electric vehicles to commercial trucks. And while many technologies promise to change the auto industry at some indefinite future date, he thinks the dawn of the carbon age may be just a few years away, Denmead shared in a recent chat with we.

Denmead’s carbon yarn is tied to Deakin University, where Carbon Revolution’s factory is located today, and where Denmead led engineering for his school’s Formula SAE team. At that time, he and his classmates were using homemade fiberglass molds to fit tiny 13-inch wheels to improve the performance of their built-from-scratch race car. Before long, their manufacturing capabilities grew, allowing them to produce small batches of prototype wheels, some of which they used on their own personal vehicles. “When I look back, it was pretty sketchy,” Denmead remarked.

Since then, Carbon Revolution has grown exponentially and today supplies the lightweight wheels used on tens of thousands of cars driving in North America, from Ferraris and Porsches to the Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 and the 2023 Chevy Corvette Z06. High-performance cars, however, are a limited market in which the benefits of weight savings are already accepted. Denmead is much more interested in the potential of carbon wheels for more pedestrian markets, such as electric vehicles.

“You get a multiplier effect by reducing mass in one wheel compared to reducing mass in other parts of the car,” Denmead explained. “Less energy to accelerate the wheel, less energy to then slow it down when braking.”

Less power consumption immediately translates into improved range and, in turn, also speeds up recharging. And because of its material properties, carbon fiber’s weight advantage only increases with wheels designed to optimize aerodynamics.

“You can make a really aero wheel out of metal, but when you do that, usually out of metal, the wheel gets really heavy,” Denmead explained. This becomes especially pronounced on large-diameter wheels, like the 24-inches that will ship on the Chevy Silverado EV. On aero wheels of this size, carbon fiber can reduce weight by up to 45%, depending on how much extra durability the customer wants.

“With carbon fiber, we can do some really cool things and have really thin wall structures with hollow sections and get that aero styling, or that performance without the weight penalty,” he continued. “We have customers interested in 24 and 26 inch wheels as standard equipment on cars.”

When it comes to their durability, Denmead knows that cracking carbon fiber wheels are always a common fear, but it’s an issue he says he doesn’t worry about in the least. “You can’t be frustrated by this,” the engineer said. “The CEO here, Jake Dingle, ran [our wheels on] a BMW 320d, and he lives in Melbourne. Every day he traveled 200 kilometers to the factory and back… [and] he had to do this for five years.”

“There are about 40,000 wheels in North America on the road, so we’re at the point where the technology has proven itself,” Denmead pointed out.

It’s not just Carbon Revolution’s own standards that its wheels have to meet. They have to pass the car manufacturers’ sniff tests because they are the ones who stand to lose customers if something goes wrong. If automakers – some of the most risk averse companies on the planet – didn’t think carbon wheels were ready for prime time, Carbon Revolution wouldn’t be where it is today.

But it’s been a long journey here, in part because of the lengthy design and testing process each wheel goes through. Carbon Revolution takes a proposed design and simulates its performance against fatigue and impact, taking into account everything from the type of resin used to the direction of the carbon weave in each layer. “Our customers are very demanding on durability testing, so designing a wheel and putting it into production typically takes two to three years,” Denmead explained. “So [a] very advanced design phase, internal simulation of wheel performance.”

After gaining sim approval, a series of real-world tests follow on the prototype wheels to ensure they are more than up to the task. “We have to pass all of these tests before these wheels or this wheel design can be put on a vehicle and put on the road.” Then, says Denmead, the automaker does its own testing on prototype vehicles — those wheels live an unprecedented life of testing, abuse and other testing before rolling into a customer’s driveway.

Denmead and his colleagues believe it’s this proven, OEM-backed technology that could make electric vehicles lighter and therefore greener. Between the weight savings of the carbon wheels and the aero designs, Denmead says efficiency gains of around 5% are possible. On an electric vehicle with a range of 300 miles, that’s an extra 15 miles of range gained by simply swapping the wheels. It could be the difference between going home or not, or reaching a nearby charger. What’s more, it would also save customers money, and Denmead is optimistic about where prices are headed.

Back when the company started selling its wheels in the aftermarket, one of its first customers was Jay Leno, who in a recent video on his YouTube channel said the wheels cost $20,000. each. “We’ve never charged $80,000 for a set of wheels. It just never, never has. But it’s true that the cost has come down significantly over the last 10 years” , Denmead told us.

While the wheels were expensive, but not this expensive – Denmead agrees that their price is falling, adding that affordable aftermarket carbon wheels – say $500 a corner – are still down sharply and could be achievable by the mid-2020s. “You might be missing out in five years, four or five years,” he said, citing the need to increase volume production.

By then, Denmead expects any apprehension about servicing vehicles with carbon fiber wheels will also have evaporated. Owners of vehicles with currently exotic wheels have often expressed frustration at the idea of ​​asking someone to change a tire or rotate them. “It’s just a general immaturity of people’s understanding,” the engineer explained. “There is no difference in changing a carbon fiber wheel to an aluminum wheel, you use the same equipment, there are videos on how to do it. It’s just that, unfortunately, people are a bit afraid of damaging an expensive wheel, that’s all right now.” So as prices come down, he thinks the tech unease around carbon wheels will tire.

Applications of this energy-saving technology are poised to affect a multitude of industries, from personal transportation to shipping and fleets, reducing energy consumption and making a small but crucial dent in global transport energy consumption. Ultimately, says Denmead, the technology will continue unabated, as it has in the past.

“It’s the same thing that happened years ago when the trucking industry switched from steel wheels to aluminum wheels,” he concluded. The technology is undeniable, the savings are there, and in Carbon Revolution’s opinion, it’s only a matter of time before everyone is clamoring to have these lightweight wheels bolted to their cars.

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