Lightweight Monoblock Forged Wheels Meet New Energy Vehicle Demand

Against the backdrop of the rapid iteration of new energy vehicles, vehicle weight reduction has become one of the core directions for major car manufacturers to improve cruising range and driving control. Recently, multiple mainstream new energy vehicle brands have successively updated their accessory supplier access standards, clearly expanding the procurement scale of monoblock forged aluminum alloy wheels for high-performance versions and customized official modification series.

Compared with traditional cast wheels, forged wheels feature higher structural strength and lower self-weight, which can effectively reduce unsprung mass. Test data shows that replacing cast wheels with forged products can reduce the single-wheel weight by 20% to 35%, helping pure electric vehicles increase the actual cruising range by 4% to 7% under the same battery capacity. Industry insiders said that in the past two years, the proportion of OEM orders for automotive forged wheels has increased year by year, breaking the previous market pattern dominated by the aftermarket refitting field.

At present, mainstream vehicle manufacturers have put forward stricter requirements on wheel fatigue resistance, corrosion resistance and customization efficiency. Factories with one-piece hot forging forming technology, flexible CNC processing capacity and complete third-party safety certification are more likely to obtain long-term cooperative qualifications of vehicle enterprises. Many wheel manufacturers have begun to expand intelligent production lines to shorten the customization cycle of finished wheels from 15 working days to within 7 working days, to meet the rapid iterative demand of new car models.

For foreign trade wheel manufacturers, the opening of OEM supply chain access brings new incremental opportunities. In addition to the traditional aftermarket wholesale business, supporting domestic and foreign new energy vehicle brands to carry out official customized wheel development will become an important growth track for forged wheel enterprises in the next three years.