Carbon fibre wheels keep Shelby on road

Carbon Revolution in Melbourne produces the unique one-piece carbon fibre wheels for the American supercar in what is claimed as a world first.  Its wheel, called the CR-9, is around half the weight of a traditional alloy wheel and the Melbourne company believes there could eventually be a global market for up to 20 million sets a year.

It's already talking to some of the biggest and most prestigious car brands and believes it will be ready for mass production in 2011 when it has cleared the world's toughest testing program in Germany.

"Once the testing is done the floodgates will open," says Jake Dingle, managing director of Carbon Revolution.  "Ultimately, we see this as step-change technology for the auto world. 

Cars priced from $40,000 will be fair game for our wheels."  The Carbon Revolution wheel design promises incredible weight savings for any car, one of the toughest challenges for companies in the 21st century, with a knock-on effect in fuel economy.

The CR-9 has already out-performed alloy wheels on safety and strength and promises a superior life expectancy because there is no corrosion.  Carbon Revolution is also working on a recycling program.

Dingle will not go into detail on the production process but says his company's wheels are the first in the world with an all-new, cost- effective production process.  "It's not a capital or energy-intensive process. The innovation behind this is twofold - the difficulty in producing the geometry and do it in a way that's able to be produced in large volume."

A set would currently cost more than $10,000 but the price will fall considerably, like the price of carbon-ceramic brakes on high- performance cars, as production ramps up.  Carbon Revolution was created as a spin-off from development on a Formula SAE university project in 2004, developing through a partnership with Deakin University that sees it located on the technology precinct in Geelong.

"The technology has been in development since the end of 2004. We now have an international patent. The company was established to commercialise the wheel," Dingle says.

"We're probably in about the 15th generation of the tchnology. We've produced a large number of prototypes and done a lot of testing. We haven't been focussing on production."  Even so, a meeting in the USA led to the Carbon Revolution wheels finding their way onto the Shelby speed machine, which is powered by a twin-turbo V8 engine and can blast to 100km/h in just 2.78 seconds.

"It was a relationship established about two-and-a-half years ago. We were looking for a partner who was at the cutting edge, and at that time they held the world speed record for a production car," Dingle says.  "We're done several sets for them for testing and internal work."

The German testing is the next hurdle but Dingle expects it to be cleared soon, with the company currently recruiting production staff in Geelong.  "We're anticipating sometime in the first half of next year being able to sell sets. We've taken a fairly conservative approach to developing the product. We didn't want to rush," he says.

"We're finalising the most draconian testing in the world in Germany at the moment. We are testing to the super sports car standard."

He is cagey about the future of the wheel but is fielding a lot of interest.  "We're engaging with the major manufacturers at the moment. The interesting market is the Daimlers, the BMWs and the Volkswagens.

"The major carmakers are looking for weight savings. And they own most of the supercar makers. We are in active discussions with most of those companies."