A wild accusation: Donut Lab’s miracle battery is just a lithium-ion battery – This is how the CEO responds

Finnish Donut Lab made a splash at the international CES trade show in the United States this winter by presenting a solid-state battery with features that would revolutionize the market. Shortly after the announcement, skeptical voices began to be heard from both competitors and researchers. Critics questioned the claims about the battery’s capabilities. Donut Lab has since commissioned specific tests at VTT, which have revealed some features, but also raised new unanswered questions.

Now, really serious accusations have been made against Donut Lab. An American following electric cars and battery technology Electrek magazine has published an articlewhere Donut Lab is directly accused of being a scam. According to the article, the promised solid-state battery would actually be just an ordinary lithium-ion battery.

The newspaper did not invent the accusation, but the battery researcher Ziroth, who runs a popular YouTube channel, is behind the claim. According to the magazine, Ziroth consulted more than 20 independent battery researchers, and all came to the same conclusion, that the battery must actually be a lithium-ion battery.

Alma News Media’s car delivery reached the CEO of Donut Lab Marko Lehtimäki by e-mail. He was already aware of Ziroth’s accusations.

“Yes, we are aware of the YouTube video made by Ziroth regarding the Donut Battery. Nothing has changed, the video repeats the same speculation about the composition and properties of the battery, which has been repeated several times during the spring on various channels and among experts,” Lehtimäki writes.

He singlehandedly condemns Ziroth’s video and Electrek article’s accusation of fraud.

“We still stand behind the information we gave and we are proceeding according to the planned schedule,” Lehtimäki writes.

Lehtimäki also points out Ziroth’s possible affiliations.

“As background information, it is good to note that Ziroth also does commercial cooperation with our biggest competitor, the Chinese one CATL– with the battery technology company”.

Information about the cooperation between Ziroth and CATL is visible On Ziroth’s website.

What is claimed?

In the Electrek article about Ziroth’s video, it is said that Donut Lab had to prove with VTT’s tests that their batteries were as promised, but according to the magazine, it was those tests that revealed the batteries to be lithium-ion batteries. The first proof is that the voltage curves obtained from VTT’s tests correspond to nickel-rich lithium-ion cells. The voltage of the cell was 3.7–3.8 volts in a 50 percent state of charge, which strongly points to a lithium ion cell. According to the magazine, the voltage of sodium ion cells does not rise significantly above 3.5 volts in the 50 percent charge state.

The second piece of evidence is described as even more revealing, and it is VTT’s test data on cell expansion. As the battery charges, ions are squeezed inside the anode material, causing it to expand in a predictable manner. The graphite anode causes a clear “bend” in the expansion curve at about 50-70 percent charge. According to Electrek, Donut Lab’s cell shows exactly that bend, and it proves that the cell uses lithium ions.

Ziroth has calculated the energy density of Donut Lab’s battery to be 298 Wh/kg, which corresponds to a good lithium-ion cell, but falls far short of the promised 400 Wh/kg level.

The article was written by the editor-in-chief of Electrek Fred Lambert. In the article, he also reminds us of other Donut Lab promises. Namely, the company promised to start deliveries of motorcycles equipped with a miracle battery in the first third of the year, but in the end only completed one motorcycle at the end of that period, and that was just a pre-production version instead of a production-ready piece. Lambert also points out that Donut Lab investors were promised a tenfold return on their investment in 12-18 months, but the article predicts that this will not happen.

The newspaper has not interviewed Donut Lab for its recent article, but Lambert recalls his previous encounter with Donut Lab CEO Marko Lehtimäki.

“When I sat down with Lehtimäki in January, I told him that he would either revolutionize the world or destroy his own credibility,” Lambert writes, but admits that at the time he still thought it was possible that everything could be true.

“The short delivery schedule, putting one’s own reputation on the line and the logic used to justify keeping the battery chemistry secret all seemed somehow reasonable”.

Lambert leaves no room for doubt anymore.

“Now, however, the evidence is revolutionary. The ‘miraculous’ solid-state battery was indeed a lithium-ion cell, and the claims presented to investors and the public were baseless,” the editor-in-chief declares.

However, Donut Lab denies Electrek’s claims as baseless. The magazine also uses as one of its sources the fired commercial director of Nordic Nano, which is closely related to Donut Lab Lauri Peltolaawho has publicly criticized Donut Lab. Lehtimäki also notes this in his email.

“In the story, the claims of Lauri Peltola, a former employee of Nordic Nano Group, have also been repeated several times. He does not have the necessary information about battery technology or the overall picture of the development work. Peltola is not a shareholder of Nordic Nano Group, and he has not been part of the working group developing Donut Lab’s battery. Nordic Nano Group has taken legal action regarding Peltola’s disclosures and submitted an investigation request to the police. The authorities are investigating the matter, and therefore we do not want to comment further on this here. stage”, writes Marko Lehtimäki.

Will Donut Lab deliver on its wild promises? Now Risto Siilasmaa is speakingHS: The home search of the Donut Lab whistleblower – The police took the phone and the computerThe owner of Donut Lab decided to give away more than 92,000 shares for free – But who did they end up with?