LOUISVILLE, KY. Alcoa Wheel and Transportation Products introduced its most durable and easy-to-maintain commercial truck wheel today at a press conference here at the Mid-America Trucking Show. Dubbed the Dura-Bright EVO, this third generation Dura-Bright wheel maintains all the benefits of its predecessor, the Dura-Bright wheel with XBR technology, while taking the popular wheel’s performance to a new level, according to Victor Marquez, vice president & general manager, Americas at Alcoa Wheel Products.
The new no-polish surface treatment on this Dura-Bright is 10 times more resistant to corrosion primarily caused by road salts and weather elements, and more resistant to chemicals found in the toughest truck cleaning agents, according to the company. This durability enables the use of a wider variety of cleaning solutions to simplify maintenance, while preserving the integrity and brightness of the wheel over “hundreds of washings and thousands of miles.”
The new Dura-Bright EVO wheel is commercially available in North America for orders shipping (to tractor and trailer OEMs) in August on Alcoa’s LvL ONE 22.5” x 8.25” and 24.5” x 8.25” wheels. All remaining North American fitments will shift to Dura-Bright EVO in January 2016, extending the innovation to fitments from Class 3 through 8. The new tire represents a “rolling change,” so there will not be an upcharge from Alcoa for the new EVO.
“We can’t stop and we won’t stop innovating,” Marquez told the audience. “We’ve actually reduced the surface energy of the wheel, making it tougher for dirt to stick. [That means] the wheels are constantly protected so that ‘what happens on the road, stays on the road.’”
The company also introduced a new way of looking at Alcoa’s total potential weight-saving contributions and pending contributions to the trucking industry. Called “The Art of Saving,” it considers not only wheels, but aluminum sheeting, aluminum frame rails, aluminum huck fasteners, castings, polished aluminum fuel tanks, aluminum fifth wheels and aluminum/carbon fiber CNG tanks among other Alcoa-provided parts and materials. If utilized all together, Marquez said the total weight savings (as compared to steel) will eventually equal about 2,500 pounds per truck
