That way they could simply prove to the public that the battery works as promised. They could, for example, release third-party reports one by one, each time proving a single feature of the battery. Energy density could be the first release, safety could be the second, and the third could describe the battery’s longevity through 5,000 cycles, etc. This would both prove the battery’s performance, build confidence in their product, and generate hype around them. The likelihood of a technological leak would increase, but if this is a concern, they should have just skipped the battery announcement altogether.
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Perhaps it’s more likely that the battery, which defies the laws of physics and chemistry, doesn’t even exist (not even at a high price). In my opinion, that would be the most likely scenario. How someone benefits or imagines they benefit from this scam is currently the most interesting part. And how this story will continue. It’s clear that more “delays” are coming.
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And soon they’ll surely be raising more money to get “production” started.
I haven’t had much energy to follow this saga in recent weeks, but if I remember correctly, Marko Lehtimäki mentioned in a KL (Kauppalehti) article that a new share issue is already being planned.
There wasn’t much trust in this outfit to begin with, and I’m sure even that little bit of trust has now been lost. I’ll keep following and wait for information on who ended up scamming whom.
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Even if it cost €10,000/kWh now, it would hardly matter. Everything new costs a fortune at the start, and prices are driven down through mass production over time. The fact that the product exists at all and is possible to manufacture is what matters.
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Ricky from the Two Bit da Vinci channel goes over the Donut Lab solid-state battery case in his video. Could a small firm from Estonia be the one to bring a technologically breakthrough battery to market first? In the approximately 45-minute video, Ricky goes through battery technology in general, use cases and specs, “proof,” and his own opinion based on the information that has been available. His interview with Ville Piippo from Donut Lab starts around the 21-minute mark.
Related to the above, another video from the same guy goes through the problems/challenges of solid-state battery development, examining the issue through the company QuantumScape. QuantumScape’s CFO and co-founder Tim Holme is interviewed in the video about these topics. QuantumScape is an R&D company that does not plan to engage in mass production itself, but instead licenses the finished product/process to a large battery manufacturer (Panasonic, etc.). In this regard, it differs from companies like Donut Lab, which also intends to handle mass production itself (Nordic Nano) - if something is ultimately coming.
I’ve had QuantumScape in my portfolio for probably over a year now with an average cost of just over 9 dollars. The stock rose sharply on Friday along with the rest of the hype, but based on the pre-market, the rise seems to be continuing today as well. I personally became interested in the company because of its message last year about approaching a mass-production-ready battery in early 2026. Furthermore, with Volkswagen owning about 14 percent of the company (now just under 12 percent due to dilution), it added enough credibility for me to decide to buy shares. I might increase my position in the near future.
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I was pondering the probability that Donut Lab/Nordic Nano have indeed seen a 400+ Wh/kg battery prototype. I came to the conclusion that this is very likely to have happened. I came across, for example, the following study that seems reliable:
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.5c17294
So, it is demonstrably possible to manufacture a pouch cell with an energy density of over 500 Wh/kg. However, the biggest problem is apparently that “combining” pouch cells to create an electric vehicle battery is “brutally difficult” (in the words of an AI). Reasons include, for example, the temperature rising too high when multiple pouch cells are close to each other, “the performance of the entire battery is often determined by its weakest cell” (so very little variation in the properties of pouch cells is allowed), an individual pouch cell in a study can flex freely, but as part of a larger assembly, this can lead to battery failure, etc…
How this relates to the topic is that apparently, in those SGS tests (albeit from years ago), they measured specifically the properties of an individual pouch cell. So, no conclusions can be drawn from them as to what the properties of the battery made from them would ultimately be. At the very least, the energy density should drop significantly.
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The weakest link in a battery is always the weakest cell, whether it is a pouch or some other form. This can significantly reduce performance, and they should somehow be deactivated from the rest if the voltage in the cell drops substantially or if it fails, in order to maintain performance. In some newer battery management systems, this likely happens, but older batteries do not have such a system. In those cases, a single cell is replaced, which must have the same performance level as the other cells in the battery at that time to avoid large cell imbalances, which in turn affect performance.
The probability of a prototype’s existence rounds to zero. It is not just about energy density, but the combination of features that Donut has presented.
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Trade-offs have worked in the way you described in traditional battery technology. But in Donut Lab’s case, the technology and manufacturing method differ radically from the traditional ones, so your claim does not hold true if Donut Lab is telling the truth.
Things are slowly becoming clear; first, the battery was supposedly ready back at the trade show and deliveries were to start within a couple of months. Well, that didn’t happen, and it’s starting to turn out that it’s a completely theoretical battery and a test of just a single cell without proven functionality with other cells.
And all of this could be debunked and the company could become one of the most valuable in Europe if they just put a finished battery in a bike and submitted it for testing, but for some strange reason, this isn’t happening.
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“Promised at CES, so we ordered this kind of cell from Nordic Nano. They can’t get the damn thing delivered, those damn subcontractors!”
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Marko Lehtimäki just posted on LinkedIn that evidence will be coming on Feb 20th. Let’s see what the end result is.
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From there, you can follow a video series if you wish, where Donut intends to present evidence.
Feb 20 at 09:00.
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It would be extremely foolish to lie about the battery’s existence at this point. It would destroy not only the market for Donut Motors as an unreliable player, but also the credibility of the main owners in all their business dealings. I find it hard to believe in such a lack of intelligence.
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A lack of intelligence is more likely than breaking the laws of nature. There could also be a straight-up scam behind it, or someone has stopped taking their medication.
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Has Donut announced anything about its battery technology, or is your claim based on some Reddit thread? The battery could just as well be based on Europositron. In that case, anything is possible.
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I strongly suspect that this video is just the same hot air as all the previous talk and documents presented. After all, the company already had a video earlier where vague figures were shown on a meter display. A working concept can be demonstrated with a patent, testing conducted by an external evaluator, testable prototype products, or a finished product. Once again, the video sounds just as vague as everything we’ve seen so far.
https://x.com/budjettibroidi/status/2021248607404556363?s=46&t=c4-OYf9yBMjuREbWiOGXdA
edit. I can’t seem to get this link to show up here, no matter how hard I try..
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Finding that is as difficult as going to the address
https://idonutbelieve.com/robots.txt
Where you can find the sitemap
https://idonutbelieve.com/page-sitemap.xml
Edit: the page has been removed, so someone at “donut” caught on. The Download report buttons weren’t connected to anything; the pages weren’t ready yet.
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