Australian wheel maker Carbon Revolution lost $347 million over four years

Australian wheel manufacturer Carbon Revolution posted losses of $347 million over four years and has been insolvent since December 2025 because Australia is a high-cost manufacturing location on the other side of the world from the company’s biggest customers, according to an independent report by accounting firm McGrathNicol.

The Australian Financial Review reports the Geelong-based company – which has supplied automakers including Ferrari, Lamborghini, Jaguar Land Rover and Ford with lightweight carbon-fibre wheels – said the high cost of local manufacturing was a major factor in the company’s woes.

Carbon Revolution was placed into administration in March 2026, when McGrathNicol was appointed to carry out a restructure. The accounting company has now revealed the heavy losses incurred by the Victorian business, which still employs 350 people.

Its report listed “extremely high annual operating losses and cash outflows, and an inability to secure sufficient wheel volumes to reduce trading losses and achieve profitability” as the primary reasons for its losses.

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McGrathNicol said Carbon Revolution’s manufacturing location was another key factor in its financial losses, describing Australia as a “high-cost environment” compared to other countries.

It also said that under a proposal by Orion Infrastructure, a US-based shareholder, creditors currently owed $13 million should expect to receive between just 33.7 and 49.7 cents in the dollar.

Formed in 2007, Carbon Revolution was one of Australia’s global success stories after it became the world’s first manufacturer to make one-piece carbon-fibre wheels, which are up to 40 per cent lighter than equivalent alloy wheels.

But recently, several failed deals with automakers which had cancelled plans for electric vehicles (EVs) – for which weight savings can lead to longer driving ranges – hit the company hard.