Carbon Revolution announces $100 million expansion

THE wheels are turning at Carbon Revolution, with the advanced manufacturer to make major inroads to the overseas market with a $100 million expansion of its Waurn Ponds premises.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and Minister for Industry and Employment Ben Carroll visited the factory at Deakin University’s Waurn Ponds campus last week to announce their government’s support of the expansion.

It will see a new 7,000 square-metre factory built (already under construction) that will almost triple the existing workforce and increase annual production capacity from 10,000 one-piece carbon fibre wheels to more than 150,000 wheels.

Carbon Revolution chief executive officer Jake Dingle said it was an exciting time in the company’s life as it scaled up its operations.

“This is an advanced, lightweight technology that’s not available anywhere else in the world – fortunately, our customers value it and want more of it, and that’s really why we’re standing in this big shed.

“We need to create more capacity and we need to industrialise what we’re doing to take that next step.”

He said there were about 200 million aluminium wheels (previously considered the best available) in the market, but carbon fibre wheels were about 40 to 50 per cent lighter and could capture a large part of that market.

Mr Andrews said many of the new jobs at Carbon Revolution would likely be filled by Geelong workers formerly employed at Alcoa and the automotive industry.

“We said that we would stick with this region and this community in difficult times, and we have, and the result of that are investments and job opportunities in so many different areas.”

Both the state government and Carbon Revolution have refused to reveal what proportion of the $100 million they are contributing to the expansion.

“I can assure every Victorian taxpayer that this is real value for money,” Mr Andrews said.

Mr Andrews also used the visit to launch the state government’s “Made In Victoria” campaign, which will promote the state’s manufacturing industry (Carbon Revolution is one of the featured businesses) and encourage Victorians to buy locally-made to support local jobs.