Good question, and one a lot of people either still don't know or know the difference......
Carbon Fiber = CF sheeting, which people (for whatever reason) back in the day was mistakenly called
Graphite, desite it truely being Carbon Fiber, is an exotic material in which one takes sheets of woven cf and coat them with epoxy (or some other kind of resin/glue) and lay multiples sheets of the material on top of one another until the desired thickness is reached, and then the whole lot is pressed together (often while being heated), in a vacuum to remove any air bubbles, until the resin cures. It is easiest and cheapest to accomplish this just doing flat sheets, but the techology of CF was first used in the aerospace industry and now is a routine product for used for making all sorts of products in F1 cars from body pieces to suspension bits (very little metal, comparatively, in today's F-1 cars).
CarbonFiber sheets were first used in RC cars as a way to eliminate the routine snapping of fiberglass chassis plates in on-road cars. Fiberglass (or G4) was cheap, easy to produce and manufacture, and relatively flexible - but had a low breaking threshhold and snapped rather easily. Changing to carbon fiber, while more expensive to produce and machine, all but eliminated racers' need to carry any extra chassis to the track with them - as well as it being about 25% less in weight than comparable thickness fiberglass. Which thereby allowed chassis manufacturers to make a CF chassis plate that was thinner yet than a comparable G4 plate, that was stronger and less apt to break on impact as well as being lighter.
In addition, some manufacturers (Bolink for example) used black-coated fiberglass to produce their cars giving the uninformed the illusion they had a graphite/CF chassis - they were mistaken.
Graphite = Graphite impregnated plastic parts used in many modern Graphite/Team Kits versions of many offroad vehicles in place of the stock plastic/nylon parts. Graphite fiber impregnated parts are lighter, and to a point stronger, yet are still more brittle because some of the parts' flexiblity has been removed/eliminated by changing the formula of the plastic mix being used the produce the part. As a result today's graphite parts are a little different mix than ordinary impact-resistant (stock) plastic - lighter, but not neccessarily stronger (definately a racer's part).
Side note: Composite Craft, a company owned by the Davis brothers and based out of Orlando Fla., was the first in our industry to mass produce materials expressly for use in our hobby. Back in the day they produced a chassis plate for nearly every car on the market. Some of their early work even consisted of an attempt at making a CF RC10 chassis that had a foam core, like a surfboard, to be lighter yet (unfortunately the experiment didn't work because screws pulled through the material too easily and the chassis's broke too easily) But they were the ones responsible for all the early CF plates, and resulted in the industry making a wholesale change in that direction (Losi JRX2, RC10 Graphite, etc.) -- but what was found was that Carbon Fiber had a tremendous amount of what might be termed "perpetual reflex" or "spring effect" in that unlike fiberglass that if you bend it it just snaps back to its orignial position, that CF had a tendancy to vibrate back and forth like a guitar string. (don't quote me, but as I remember Masami kinda freaked everyone out by showing up at the worlds with a stock goldtub chassis on his RC10 -- and when the AE people inquired why, he said in his broken english, "me no likey graphite. it make car go boingy-bong") As a result CC and other manufacturers tried to remedy this problem by making double-decker chassis plates, which while successfull dramatically added to the weight of the vehicle and increased the CoG - and dramatically increased the cost, because now you basically had two chassis plates to make one chassis. So anyway, as a result of a couple of years chasing their tail trying to fix the CF problem the manufacturers found they could make a tub out of G4 fiber impregnated plastic that was almost as light as a true CF chassis yet for minimal cost in comparison (once the molds were made) and being that the design(s) are tubs they retain the rigidity it was a win-win for the manufacturers............. leaving us where we're at today. Nowadays true CF chassis plates are only used on the higher-end on-road and 4wd offroad cars (note the price difference between the stock plastic tub and the CF/Graphite team kits).
Whew --- now I'm tired, and need another cup of java and a smoke. Hope I got it all right, and didn't miss anything.
. No joke. Anyway, I ask because when I started seeing Losi calling their plastic looking parts graphite it always bothered me. I'm 99.9% sure I know the answer to this, but I'm asking so I can end speculation. As my new signature suggests, I will get all the answers I've always wanted. And for what it's worth if you search "what is the difference between carbon fiber and graphite?" you will see a very cool car. 
Sort of answers the question too, but I want to be sure. thanks
Great answers though guys. That's exactly what I thought and what I was looking for. 
Ratboy and 1 guest
