The battery dispute escalates even more – Donut Lab rejects the fresh accusations of its ex-manager

One of the founders of Nordic Nano Group but has since resigned from the company Lauri Peltola has released the final video in his Solid State of Truth video series. In his latest video, Peltola reveals the most extensive rumors surrounding Donut Lab’s solid-state battery so far.

In April, Peltola filed a criminal complaint about Donut Lab’s operations. After Peltola’s exit, Nordic Nano dismissed Peltola, and initiated opposing legal actions against Peltola.

Watch Peltola’s video below:

Peltola’s claims in the video are fierce, and he considers the whole story surrounding Donut Lab’s miracle battery to be a complete hoax. In the video, Peltola admits that he himself initially believed in the miracle battery.

Peltola does not actually justify the claims presented in his video with anything other than the fact that he was there himself when Nordic Nano and CT-Coating negotiated the manufacture of batteries.

The video published now is the last statement Peltola intends to make on the battery topic, and after this he will leave the topic for the authorities to handle. Peltola urges those who invested in Donut Lab to get their money back through the courts.

Milking money from Finns

Peltola’s video is mostly about the German CT-Coating, which, according to Peltola, is the company that originally sold the battery technology to Nordic Nano Group. According to the video, CT-Coating has systematically cheated other companies with its technology for 10 years. This is Peltola’s claim, which the editors cannot confirm.

In his video, Peltola explains CT-Coating’s operating model, where they try to get small companies to invest in the promised battery technology:

“When we at NNG started cooperating with CT-Coating, they also openly had other partners and customers. This gave us a sense of urgency. The millions had to be dug up immediately, or else the first production lines will go to other operators and we will be helplessly late,” Peltola says about the negotiations between Nordic Nano and CT-Coating in his video.

“If Nordic Nano had not worked as CT-Coating suggested, the first solar panels and miracle batteries would have gone to other operators,” continues Peltola.

In his video, Peltola explains how CT-Coating had previously cooperated with the Swedish Holyvolt. Holyvolt had demanded solid evidence of the functionality of the technology before further investments. Since CT-Coating was unable to present these, Holyvolt terminated the contract and demanded the termination of the joint venture. Nordic Nano, on the other hand, had no hopes for additional screens, and they believed the sales pitch of the Germans.

“We sent more millions, which would soon produce a new miracle paste, from which, by printing, you could get much better batteries and solar cells. It’s not worth starting production with the old paste, which always had a little sanding to it,” says Peltola about CT-Coating’s promises in his video.

“We were told that there is still lithium in the current battery paste, but they are working hard to ensure that the next versions do not,” continues Peltola.

According to Peltola, CT-Coating found an easy source of funding in Finland, which believed everything the Germans told them. At the same time, Nordic Nano was constantly in a hurry to find new investors and additional funding.

After the exits that became public in the spring of 2026, Peltola says that he received contacts from various parties, according to which CT-Coating has been operating with the same formula for ten years. According to him, CT-Coating’s marketing company Next Eco still sells similar exclusive rights and production lines to, for example, the Netherlands.

The connections between Nordic Nano Group’s battery technology and the German CT-Coating have already been connected before, and the topic has been written by e.g. Helsingin Sanomat.

Doubt about the origin of the batteries

One of the claims in the video is that the Donut Lab batteries tested at VTT and Estonia were not manufactured on CT-Coating’s own line, but batteries purchased and used elsewhere.

Peltola’s claims correspond somewhat to what the experts we interviewed commented on VTT’s tests on Donut Lab’s batteries in spring 2026.

At that time, the behavior of the battery in VTT’s tests roughly corresponded to an overloaded lithium-ion battery through which excessively large currents were forced.

One of Peltola’s boldest claims is that the same battery elements already used in VTT’s tests were installed on the first Verge demonstration motorcycle, which, according to Peltola, could not be delivered to the customer, because disassembly would have revealed that the batteries contained lithium and had a weak cycle life. We have not been able to confirm this claim either.

Counterattack by Donut Lab and Lehtimäki

Kauppalehti asked the CEO of Donut Lab Marko from Lehtimäki comments on Lauri Peltola’s claims. Lehtimäki completely denies the claims presented in the video, but is not satisfied with his answer to this.

“First, I want to repeat what we said before, that is, that Peltola was not part of the battery team, and we deny the new claims as unfounded. As you know, there is no evidence to support them,” Lehtimäki begins.

In his reply, Lehtimäki starts an open attack against Peltola, even though we didn’t ask about it separately:

“From the beginning, he has been dishonest in his videos and talked about things he had no knowledge of, and he has his personal motives for it,” Lehtimäki adds and urges to dig into Peltola’s background to find out his true motives.

Multiple technology partners

We also asked Lehtimäki whether Donut Lab still denies the connection to the German CT-Coating behind the company’s battery technology.

“We have never denied or admitted the existence of any of our potential partners, except Nordic Nano Group, which we have now bought. We will continue on the same line, but that’s all we can say that the company has a large number of technology partners. You can’t do this with one or two partners,” Lehtimäki answered our question about the CT-Coating connection.

Lehtimäki suggests that Donut Battery’s breakthroughs are not behind just one single company:

“It can still be stated that, contrary to what some have commented, Donut Lab has itself developed a considerable amount of battery technology, and is protecting inventions in the fields of, for example, new battery chemistry, battery structure, battery manufacturing and application level. Of course, Peltola or others outside the company do not have any information about these technologies, because we have not disclosed them. The end results that can be seen now and in the future speak more about them,” Lehtimäki explains.

The wild claims are true

We asked Lehtimäki, after the twists and turns that have been published recently, whether the wild claims about the 400 Wh/kg energy density and 100,000 cycle duration of Donut Lab’s solid-state battery that were announced at the CES fair at the beginning of the year are still true. According to Lehtimäki, yes.

“With our batteries, we intend to fulfill the promises of the CES announcement, and next we will prove, for example, the energy density of the batteries, which has been asked for a long time. We have proven these things one at a time for reasons related to patenting and other strategic actions, but as we have said, our intention is to publish all the information about the battery over time. During the summer, we published (and proved) the bipolar structure and most recently the nail test”, Lehtimäki describes the recent their communication.

According to the claims on Peltola’s video and the experts interviewed by Kauppalehti, the batteries used in VTT’s laboratory tests in the spring were lithium ion batteries.

We asked Lehtimäki about the topic, because Donut Lab had announced new third-party tests for its battery this summer. However, the results of the new tests were not properly announced by Donut Lab, because this third independent party did not want their research results to be made public at the last minute. Seeing the research results would have required signing an NDA.

“All the battery cells we have tested have always been solid-state batteries,” Lehtimäki states briefly.

For serial production approximately on schedule

At CES in January, Donut Lab said that their solid-state battery is already in pre-production, and that production will be increased to several gigawatt-hours this year.

From Peltola’s claims in the video, it can be concluded that the batteries are hardly close to serial production.

We checked the current situation of battery serial production from Lehtimäki:

“As far as serial production is concerned, we are going roughly on schedule. Scaling production is always very difficult with physical products, but we have a top team, so I think there is a chance to reach our goals roughly on schedule,” concludes Lehtimäki.

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