Donut Lab’s latest announcement is both really impressive and a giant flop

There have been enough twists and turns in Donut Lab’s VTT report disclosure saga. VTT’s test reports have been read like a damn bible. And no wonder, because everyone wants to know if Donut Lab’s wild claims can be true.

The general conclusion from the three published VTT reports so far, drastically straightening out the bends, is that 1) it can be charged a couple of times really quickly, 2) the battery can withstand heat to some extent and 3) it is not a supercapacitor.

The truly wild duration of 100,000 charge cycles and, mirroring the other features, the high energy density of 400 Wh/kg are all questions that concern experts in the battery industry, to which we have not received answers. The tests published so far could also have been done more or less successfully with commonly available NMC lithium-ion cells.

From a scientific point of view, Donut Lab’s fourth announcement is a completely zero result, because it was made by Donut Lab itself instead of VTT. If the test had been done by a third party, it would be treated very differently.

The fourth test

Monday 16.3. Donut Lab released a press release saying that it had fast-charged its Verge TS Pro electric motorcycle with a public fast charger. In Donut Lab’s own tests and in the Youtube video published by the company, the bike was charged to a charge level of 10-80% in 12 minutes, and in that time the battery consumed 14 kWh of power. Donut Lab said the total capacity of the battery is 18 kWh.

Hard performance?

Donut Lab has driven itself to such a situation with its strong claims and selective exits that if they announced almost anything, it would no longer be believed as it is.

Let’s start the analysis first with the fact that the glass is already half full, that is, through the positive.

So Verge’s electric motorcycle was charged to 80 percent charge level in 12 minutes. If the result is compared to the best electric cars on the market at the moment, Donut Lab’s bike has been charged as well as the Chinese Xpeng’s G6 and G9 electric cars. They too are proven to reach 80 percent charging level in 12 minutes at 5C charging speed.

And I emphasize that the bar is absolutely the best charging electric cars on the European market. In comparison, the new BMW iX3 and Volvo EX60, which contain Europe’s best know-how, reach only 18–20 minutes with their new 800 V systems.

The performance of the Verge motorcycle is also improved by the fact that the battery only has passive cooling. In order for current electric cars to reach similar speeds, they require strong liquid cooling and, of course, strong preheating to achieve optimal charging speeds – in other words, aggressive thermal management.

Verge’s bike charging speeds are therefore impressive by the standards of current technology.

Where is the 11C download?

Glass-half-empty advocates see Donut Lab’s latest test differently, and equally on the subject.

Donut Lab has promised that its battery can be charged at 11C speeds, which was also the subject of the first VTT test report. Even so, Verge’s bike only charged at 5C in the test, according to Donut Lab. Have the promises been broken?

Donut Lab should be given enough credit that they have already admitted since the CES fair that the company’s battery does not charge at the promised 11C speed in Verge’s bike with passive cooling, but it would do so in a cooled battery pack.

The claim is also supported by the fact that in the charging curve published by the company, the charging speed of the battery was limited to a constant charging power of 100 kW. A flat line in the charging curve would indicate that the battery could receive current much faster, but due to heat management, the speed is limited.

Is the test credible?

The next question is, is Donut Lab’s announcement even believable?

The download test was done in Estonia. The fastest managed to locate the place of the charging test, the Iru Circle K charging station located near Verge’s premises in the vicinity of Tallinn.

Based on the video, Verge’s bike has actually been tested in question. Based on that, Donut Lab at least has 18 kWh front miracle batteries in their hands, which have been successfully installed on Verge’s bike.

When electric car manufacturers send announcements to various media about their own charging tests, they must be treated with healthy skepticism. The most beautiful numbers are always put in the manufacturer’s bulletin, where your car or battery is displayed as positively as possible. Performance may or may not be credible. But it is rarely the case that even the media or the general public consider the press release to be a scam from the start.

Donut Lab has put themselves in a situation where their announcements are interpreted with suspicion. Credibility is zero. No matter how much Donut Lab would like to spin it on the neck of the media, they can only blame themselves for the phenomenon.

I myself am not quite sure if the picture taken from further away and the close-up shot of the charging screen of the charger are from the same situation. The camera recording the frame is nowhere to be seen in the video. So, has Donut Lab itself added its own numbers to the box afterwards, or are there two different loading situations? Just speculation.

Interest wanes

There was a lot of buzz around Donut Lab’s battery tests when the first report was published. Now, there are not many news media that diligently follow the battery publication.

The netizens and battery geeks who follow Donut Lab most diligently on the Reddit forums vent their disappointment when nothing interesting was announced this week either. There, too, the drug starts to wear off.

The last two announcements have not brought new openings to the subject in terms of battery technology. So next week there is reason to start happening. The biggest excitement is whether we will then get our hands on the VTT test report again.

In Donut Lab’s battery test, something happened that was not expected or hoped for – “A side reaction triggered in the cell”Waiting for miracle batteries, Verge talks about the 1.2 billion euro sales pipeline and listing – We went through the company’s investor materialVapise Donut Lab – The world’s largest electric car manufacturer strikes back and hardThe Verge motorcycle needs a new battery more than ever