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CORVETTE TODAY #116 - Carbon Revolution (from Australia) Talks About Carbon Fiber Wheels
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May 8, 2025
Carbon Revolution, from Australia, is the company that will be making the Carbon Fiber wheels for the new C8 Z06. Your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett sits down with Tim deSouza from Australia and Brad Lethorn from their North American office. Tim and Brad talk about the origins of the company, what other car brands they make Carbon Fiber wheels for and the future of Carbon Fiber! It's a fascinating and informative show! Don't miss this episode of CORVETTE TODAY.
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0:00
[Music] welcome to corvette today the podcast
0:06
that talks about everything corvette with your host steve garrett mc and dj at one of the largest corvette weekends
0:12
in the country corvette fun fest president of the corvette club of kansas city missouri and radio disc jockey at
0:19
the number one radio station in kansas city for over 40 years here's steve garrett
0:25
[Music] thanks for listening to corvette today
0:30
the podcast that talks about everything corvette brought to you by wheelcraft want to dress up your corvette with
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i'm your host steve garrett i appreciate you tuning in you can listen to corvette today on all podcast platforms you can
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around the corner one of my favorite options on the car is going to be the new carbon fiber wheels these wheels are
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being made by carbon revolution and on this episode of corvette today i have bradley thorne the north american
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engineering program manager based in detroit michigan with me along with tim d'souza the product engineering manager
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based in geelong australia on the show guys welcome to corvette today thanks steve glad to be here yeah thanks very
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much steve we're pleasure to be here i'm so excited to have you guys on the show first of all guys let's start with a
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little bit of history about carbon revolution tell me about the company where was it started when was it started
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and by whom yes steve i'll take that one it was started actually our very own
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ashley demean who is the cto of our company now he's one of the founders but also he started in formula sae and in
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that project one of his jobs he had to do was create the wheel and he created a carbon fiber wheel which actually still
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resides in our headquarters today so that first carbon fiber wheel that ashley made one of the other founders
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that's still with the company is jake dingle he's our ceo and then my old boss
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was brett gass and he's now left the company since but he was an original founder also carbon revolution got
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started in 2007 since 2007 we started right away in the aftermarket to prove
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out the technology did a lot of back to back testing on the track with aluminum versus carbon fiber wheels with
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professional drivers things like that and then we launched our first oem vehicle in 2015 that was on the gt350r
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and then of course we've just listed on the australian stock exchange in 2019.
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wow that's really cool it's interesting to hear that you guys have racing background also talk about the offices
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and where the wheels are manufactured now so our manufacturing facility is in
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geelong australia it resides right on the deakin university campus so our
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headquarters main offices and our manufacturing are all in one building right now and then geelong happened to
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be the capital of the automotive industry in australia which started around the 20s with ford building their
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first facility in geelong and then they built engines all the way through 2016.
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unfortunately they don't have much of a market or any facilities right now it got dissolved the plus for us when we
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were coming up and getting larger we were able to pull a lot of very good experienced engineers and manufacturing
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experience from a lot of the oems like ford gm holden and toyota also we have
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people like myself i'm working in north america we have two other people working in north america with me and then we've
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got a few people working in europe also guys tell me about the products the carbon revolution makes do you guys make
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anything besides wheels for cars yeah that's a common question we get asked a lot steve do we make anything else given
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our expertise in carbon fibre materials and carbon fiber composite manufacturing and the simple answer is is no we don't
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we focus primarily on making the lightest most advanced wheel that we can make so there's sort of really two
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reasons for that the first one is that carbon fiber wheels are essentially an efficiency lightweight technology and
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they're essentially the best place on a vehicle to reduce mass they spin up as you're trying to accelerate you need to
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try and slow them down they ride bumps so every time you take a kilo or a weight save out of that unsprung mass in
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a wheel it has huge benefits for the vehicle overall so our customers really
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really want that technology and that lightweight technology in the wheel and that's what we really strive on focusing
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on delivering and i guess the second reason why we focus primarily on wheels is it's such a very complex structure
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and so we've got very much our hands full in just designing and manufacturing this really advanced complex composite
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structure in its entirety we do all of the design and development work right through to designing the equipment and
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the machines that manufacture the carbon fiber wheel itself as well that is so cool guys now i know you're making the
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carbon fiber wheels for the new c806 let's talk about some of the other car
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companies you've worked with before and what specific cars have your wheels on them or available for them so as i
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mentioned above steve we cut our teeth on the shelby mustang so the gt350r
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and then we launched the gt supercar for ford and then our latest launch was the
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gt500 we also work with ferrari 488 pista was one of our launches with ferrari we work
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with renault their hatchback we're really excited also for some of the future programs that we're working on do
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have to do with suvs trucks and evs actually that's really cool guys explain
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why carbon fiber wheels are better for cars because obviously there's advantages given to every car owner who
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has carbon fiber wheels especially if they track the car yeah sure steve so
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the main thing here is as i've mentioned earlier is we really targeted weight reduction on a vehicle in the most
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critical place on the vehicle and that's in the area of the unsprung mass so anything outboard of your suspension
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that mass needs to be able to oscillate up and down as it's going over bumps in the road it needs to be able to track to
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the road really truly so it gives all that really positive driver feedback when you're braking into a corner you've
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got less rotational mass that you're trying to slow down so the benefits of it are all about providing essentially a
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faster car a more higher performance vehicle and we've seen that demonstrated in lap times all over the world track
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records being broken our customers bolt on our wheels to their car within almost
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one to one and a half seconds a lap quicker in some cases for a direct substitution with our wheels there's a
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couple of other really profound benefits of using carbon fiber composites and this lightweight wheel and one of them
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is ride and comfort so carbon fiber composites have a natural damping coefficient which is almost three times
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that of aluminium so all of the little bumps and road noise that you feel and you hear that transmits itself through
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the wheels through your suspension into the cabin of the vehicle is all dampened out so not only do you get a higher
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performing faster vehicle but the car also feels quieter it feels more refined
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in its way that it drives so that's a real positive you know you're ticking all the boxes in many areas there plus i
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love the look of carbon fiber and the wheels look absolutely stunning guys i can't wait to get one on my own z06
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finally in this section guys talk about your goal for your target for automotive wheel output per year
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we believe that the carbon fibers could disrupt the aluminum wheel market up to 15 percent by about 2035
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and obviously we're hoping to play a huge role in that looking forward into
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scaling up in our production and as we go further and are automating most of our processes and things like that it's
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something that we believe will become a reality we also just sold our 50 000 wheel our next 50 will definitely go
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much much quicker we've got a whole new system coming online that we call a mega
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line at the moment our production capacity is at about 75 000 and we expect the mega line to take us up to
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about 150 000. that's amazing congratulations guys tell you what let's take our first break and when we come
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back we're going to talk about how you actually build a carbon fiber wheel here on corvette today
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i'm your host steve garrett with me today are the guys from carbon revolution i've got brad lethborn with
13:41
me the north american engineering program manager based in detroit michigan along with tim d'souza the
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product engineering manager based in geelong australia in the second segment we're going to talk about how a carbon
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fiber wheel is made guys let's overview the process of actually how you build a
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carbon fiber wheel from like the raw material to fabrication to infusion to ceramic coating all the way up to
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inspection so right from the raw material we spec all of our own raw materials we have all of our own
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specifications for all the different types of carbon fibers that we need right down to the toe all the way to the ply different types of plies throughout
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the wheel also all the epoxy resins and the chemicals that we bring in house too
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right from there we take and have to cut out all the individual shapes because to build those spokes up and things like
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that there's lots of different layers and we have to cut each individual geometry out for all those spokes and
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then we put it into the spokes calling it a layup sometimes in sub components we can put it together in an automated
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process in some cases we put that into face mold and we apply a bucket which allows us to wrap the barrel onto the
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bucket and then that bucket and face go into a molding process which is the backbone of our whole process which we
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call a high pressure molding machine that allows us to take a lot of time out of the process that machine basically
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infuses the epoxy resin into the wheel and then once we take it out we would apply what we call a tbc coating is a
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thermal barrier coating so that's the white coating that you might have seen on the corvette when they're advertising
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that's to refract the breaking heat that's a ceramic coating that gets applied with a plasma sprayer head after
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we build the mold this structural wheel we apply our diamond weave technology
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which is proprietary which allows us to bring the quality of our wheel the
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appearance of our wheel increase it considerably from there we do 100 x-ray 100 leak we test our resin coupons
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that could get carried with the wheels to assure quality we do 100 uniformity check on the wheel for the
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bead seats and then all of our hardware is all patented and proprietary also for
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how to attach the carbon fiber to the wheel that's really cool guys also let's
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talk about the durability of carbon fiber wheels and the advantages like unsprung weight carbon fiber as you
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would know being a carbon fiber guru in carbon fiber nut it's a fantastic material it's the sort of material that
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for the same strength design as something in aluminium you can save 40 to 60 weight reduction and i guess the
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key thing there is really when you design it correctly you need to almost become emotional a little bit with the
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material and make sure that you're feeling what it's doing within the wheel and put it in the right places to make
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sure that it's carrying the loads when you design a wheel particularly and carefully like that the durability of it
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is actually fantastic it has a different value property compared to aluminium wheels aluminium wheels are designed to
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sort of bend and buckle carbon fiber composite won't do that and so you need to take those considerations into mind
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when you're designing it carbon fibre itself has an infinite fatigue life so from a durability and fatigue
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perspective it's a wonderful material to put into a wheel all of our wheels go through very very rigorous testing
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more so probably than in a lot of aluminium wheels because as a new technology take-up for our customers
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they want our product to sort of jump through all of the hoops and over the highest hurdles in terms of testing and
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validation so we're very proud of that work that we do we certainly stand by
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the strength and the performance of our wheels from a durability and fatigue perspective guys are there a lot of
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carbon fiber wheels already on the roads in north america how many gs made are out there now yeah there's a lot steve
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as brad mentioned just recently we sold our 50 000 wheel into the market that's
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across the us as well as into europe so there's definitely a lot of wheels rolling around probably in detroit
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michigan over the potholes and over the roads there yeah there's certainly a lot out there and there's definitely more to
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come guys let's also talk about i know you briefly touched on your testing parameters but go through that a little
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bit more in depth and i know that these carbon fiber wheels go through a lot of tests before they're actually put on the
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road yeah you're right steve because we're a carbon fiber wheel and we're a new technology we typically have to go
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through way more than the typical wheel has to go through in order to just do a typical launch for a wheel for instance
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we had about five years of collaboration and development on this wheel that we're launching with gm right now so five
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years of testing basically we've taken it through its paces it goes through all the normal oem wheel tests that any
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wheel would go through i've actually helped manage the test facility over here in the states i get to experience a
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lot of that one that i can take you through real quick is that some of the misconception by it being kind of dainty
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like impact tests and things like that i've seen it go through impact tests very tough ones and i can tell you that
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even with a crack we would put the wheel back onto what we call a radio machine
18:57
that would just put highway miles on under a gvw situation the wheel would do just fine up through a certain amount of
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miles to get you back to a gas station things like that the wheel held up fine brad i'm glad you brought that up
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because talking about the durability of the wheels is really really important i think there's a misconception in america
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that carbon fiber wheels are great they're lightweight but they're not durable talk about that a little bit
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more steve i might take a little bit on this one so as brad mentioned we did an extensive amount of testing as part of
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the validation and release for the z06 program it included a real torture test
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of the wheel so we did a lot of testing testing all of the functional sort of structural elements of the wheel in a
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variety of different environmental conditions we simulated wheels being curb scraped so having a lot of gutter
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rash on them having a rock stuck between the caliper and grinding away at the barrel of the wheel then we'd take those
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wheels and submerge them in cold water freeze them and then impact test them and then after that impact test we'd go
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and put them on a fatigue rig so we really threw absolutely everything at our wheels to prove that they had the
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durability that had the life be able to sort of take heavy track punishment so you're taking it to the racetrack and
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being able to see it survive many many laps and then also through a whole heap of different temperature tests added as
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well so really high temperature brake tests that our customers exhibited to the wheel and made sure that we still
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got the level of performance we needed out of those wheels tim it's amazing to hear of the amount of testing and
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extremes those wheels go through before they go to market one of the other misconceptions i think guys is the cost
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of carbon fiber wheels can you talk about cost of these wheels and the
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trends that you're seeing in the marketplace yeah the costs are definitely higher steve but you got to look at the efficiencies that you're
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getting out of this particular wheel especially compared to an aluminum we're 40 lighter typically than aluminum wheel
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and then also the wow factor in the carbon fiber itself everybody loves the
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look of carbon fiber and we've never had a problem with people specifying actually we have
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more pull typically than what we estimate for the carbon fiber wheels themselves and then what we kind of
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talked about the scaling up of our manufacturing processes and more automation and as we sell more and we
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become more efficient with our process the cost is only going to go down the trend will continue that's true brad i
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appreciate that guys let's take our final break and when we come back we're going to talk about the future carbon
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913-384-1550 [Music]
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and now back to corvette today with your host and my husband steve garrett
25:25
hey thanks for listening and watching corvette today brought to you by wheelcraft want to dress up your
25:30
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25:36
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i'm your host steve garrett with me are the guys from carbon revolution i have brad lethorne the north american
25:53
engineering programming manager based in detroit michigan with me along with tim d'souza the product engineering manager
26:00
based in geelong australia in this third and final segment we're going to talk about the actual future for carbon fiber
26:08
guys give us a little history of carbon fiber itself and some of the future that
26:13
you see for the actual product itself so carbon fiber was first produced in the
26:19
late 50s aircraft started using it around 69 and 81 they're using it on f1
26:25
cars and then first bicycle frame was in 1986 the mclaren f1 was the first
26:32
production car that actually used carbon fiber and then in 1996 helicopters
26:38
started using blades actually the helicopter blades were carbon fiber wow and then in 2009 we launched our very
26:45
own aftermarket what we call a cr9 wheel and then also in 2009 the boeing 787
26:51
dreamliner came out with their first carbon fiber fuselage and wings that's really amazing just the use for everyday
26:59
practicality of carbon fiber is really coming into vogue and when you think of it it's been used since the late 50s but
27:06
really now it's really hitting its stride isn't it guys absolutely i think one thing we haven't really talked about
27:13
is the effect of a carbon fiber wheel on tires can you guys address that what is
27:18
a carbon fiber wheel due to the actual tire that's mounted onto it well the
27:23
wheel is lighter so you'd expect that the tire wear would reduce now there's
27:28
not a whole lot of research on that right now also i guess in terms of how the tire interacts with the wheels like
27:35
mounting tires and things like that there's not a lot of difference between it we've got most of the tire changers
27:41
out there will change your tire on a carbon fiber wheel carbon revolution has instructional videos on our website and
27:48
on our youtube channel also just like anything else your expensive aluminum wheel you treat it the same exact way as
27:54
you would a nice expensive pretty carbon fiber when you're mounting tires that makes sense do you guys also provide a
28:01
warranty with your wheels as an oem product it's covered under a manufacturer's relevant warranty
28:07
typically very cool i know you guys are obviously very busy let's talk about some of the programs that are in current
28:13
production and maybe some of the other future projects you're looking to work on well steve we've got six programs
28:20
with oems that are in our current production portfolio so there's three different oems across those six
28:25
different wheel programs and then there's about nine new programs that are in the development phase with some of
28:31
our existing oems and with some of our new oems the other stuff that sort of keeps us busy is a lot of the scale-up
28:38
work that we're doing so we're really trying to increase the volume output of our facility
28:44
smarten everything up so we're bringing in a lot of automation to the processors that historically would be very manual
28:51
out in the carbon fiber composite manufacturing industry so there's a lot of new developments happening in the
28:56
manufacture of our carbon fiber wheels from an automation and process development perspective we've also doing
29:02
a little bit of work in areas which i guess are not automotive space but also aerospace so not only do we look at
29:09
lightweight automotive wheels but we're doing a little bit with the australian defense force looking at helicopter
29:15
wheels so some really exciting new applications coming out of our technology as well you guys are really
29:21
busy and you're branching out that is so cool to hear that you're branching out not just in the automotive wheels but
29:27
man that's going to keep you guys busy for a long time and you're getting into different areas as well you know guys
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one of the things i don't think a person that is looking at a carbon fiber wheel
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realizes and understands the strength of the carbon fiber talk about what carbon
29:43
fiber does for weight savings and the strength of whatever it's in sure well carbon fiber is about 13 times stronger
29:50
than aluminium for the same mass the real benefit is that as a product designer you get an unlimited pallet to
29:57
be able to design a carbon fiber composite structure so what i mean by that is if you were designing something
30:03
out of aluminium you can play with the external geometry of the wheel to make it stiffer stronger to resolve stresses
30:09
within the wheel with a carbon fiber composite material you design the outside of the wheel but then that's
30:16
only really the tip of the iceberg you then have to design all of the fibre layers and all of the orientation of all
30:22
of those fibre layers within the wheel as well so the real true benefit can be realized in the fact that you can really
30:29
truly optimize the design out of carbon fiber composites so you're really taking advantage of the profound strength
30:36
increase that you see in carbon fiber composite materials by being able to design and tailor your design solution
30:42
according to that guys i know the answer to this and i think it's pretty incredible but i don't know if everybody else does on a typical automobile wheel
30:50
how many layers of carbon fiber are there yeah there's a lot steve you know we pride ourselves on saying we're a one
30:56
piece carbon fiber wheel manufacturer in fact that one piece molded wheel that
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brad spoke of earlier has around about 200 individual plies and pieces within
31:07
the wheel as a neat fact for you here one carbon fiber wheel if you took every single strand of carbon fiber and laid
31:13
it end on end it would go around the world three times so that's the quantity of carbon fibre that goes into one wheel
31:20
we utilize a number of different fabric and fiber types within our wheel so it's not one size fits all in terms of the
31:27
material and the carbon fiber we choose it's very much fit for purpose and also fit for cost so we make sure that we put
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the expensive stuff in the areas that it's needed and we try to reduce cost in areas where we don't need that high
31:39
level of strength or that particular complex fabric architecture in the wheel as much that's absolutely incredible you
31:46
guys will a driver notice a big difference if he's on carbon fiber wheels
31:51
absolutely yeah this was the immediate feedback we get from just about all of our customers as soon as they attach the
31:58
carbon fiber wheels to their vehicles i think taj from general motors sort of said that as soon as you drive out of
32:03
the car park you can feel that the vehicle is just totally different it's quieter it's more responsive the
32:09
steering comes alive not only is the vehicle quicker around the race track you can brake later you can accelerate
32:15
out of corners faster it turns in quicker the steering just feels a lot more alive and nimble you feel much more
32:22
connected with the vehicles there are all sorts of things that it's hard to put a number around as an engineer but
32:28
it's those tangible emotive sort of feelings that our customers sort of respond to when they have carbon
32:33
revolution carbon fiber wheels on their vehicles which really excites us and really excites our customers guys i'm so
32:40
excited for this wheel to come out obviously i'm excited about the new c806 coming out but i'll tell you what when i
32:46
get mine it's definitely going to have carbon revolution carbon fiber wheels on my z06 fantastic tuesday guys thank you
32:54
so much for taking the time to be on corvette today bradley thorne and tim d'souza i appreciate your time looking
33:01
forward to seeing your fantastic product coming out in the late summer or early fall here in america thanks steve we
33:08
really appreciate the opportunity to talk to you today thanks dave thanks for listening to corvette today and please
33:14
be sure to tell your family friends and other corvette enthusiasts about the corvette today podcast and thanks to our
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34:06
you've been listening to corvette today with steve garrett if you'd like to contact steve with any thoughts on the
34:11
podcast or ideas for guests on corvette today you can email him at steve garrett
34:16
dj gmail.com that's steve garrett dj gmail.com
34:23
garrett has two r's and two t's or connect with steve on social media on facebook twitter or instagram using at
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steve garrett dj thanks again for listening to corvette today
34:59
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