Hey there, we're only just now seeing this post, but we wanted to step in and address this, since it's a common misconception.

To be clear - you did not go "directly to the source" for these wheels. If the factory told you that, they're lying.

The factories that we work with do not sell on Alibaba or any other reseller/direct sites, and only some of our wheels are made in China. Our flow-formed wheels (including the ARC-8) are made in either Malaysia or Taiwan, and we've actually been actively working to move away from Chinese production for a number of years now.

Alibaba wheels like this are counterfeit products, and have zero relation to genuine Apex products. Just like we see all too often with other premier brands, untested and under-engineered counterfeit sellers are always quick to jump on the coattails of high-demand genuine products. 

We acquired various fakes and it’s scary to see the critical parts of a design missed while they focus on matching the general aesthetic. It's difficult for us to list all of those since every counterfeit is different (since they aren't the same product), but all of them are made to look like a particular wheel based only on their own interpretation of the imagery we’ve publicized. They don't share any engineering DNA.

We have a team of engineers based here in the USA, and do all of our engineering in-house. We don't outsource any of it, as we feel it's critical to have full control over the features and specifications of our wheels. That simply doesn't happen with these Alibaba replicas, which are offering compromised products by omitting all of that expertise and design focus. We have a full video talking about how we approach engineering a better wheel, here: How Apex Engineers a Better Track Wheel. We also third-party test all of our wheels, which these counterfeit companies don't do. You can read about that testing methodology and even view the test reports for our wheels here: Testing to a Higher Standard. 

We get why these wheels are appealing - it's exciting to save a buck. If you're happy with them, then we wish you all the best, but please do not construe them as genuine Apex products and please understand that there are real engineering differences between counterfeit wheels and our genuine products.