CES 2026: Taking a Bite Out of Donut’s Solid-State Battery Claims

Though I’m not at CES to kick the tires, I’ve been watching both the trade press and “influencers” go bonkers over Donut Lab’s CES announcement of a solid-state battery that’s claimed to be the first to be in production in a vehicle — the in-wheel-motored Verge motorcycle (take our poll about Donut Lab's SSB below). Gorgeous:

SSB or SBS?

With claims of 400-Wh/kg energy density, −30 to 100°C operation, and boasting of 12C charging rates, my BS-detector got set off, with my BS scanner being subsequently set to high sensitivity. Our regular readers know that I’ve become serious about my DARPA challenge drone project. I’ve spent the past few weeks looking for a battery technology, preproduction or prototype works for me, so I have a pretty good idea of what’s out there.

I’m still open to sponsorships of about 20 kWh worth of cells, by the way, if you want to have your brand’s stickers on my bird in Ohio in June, assuming it gets chosen for the flyoff by DARPA organizers and I don’t crash the development units to the edge of bankruptcy until then.

Tiny Finnish startup Donut Lab’s claims of a motorcycle having an advanced battery technology that a world chock-full of PhDs in companies with very deep pockets has failed to deliver for a decade or so (I’m looking at you, Toyota) has to be met with skepticism and skeptical is me.

There’s allegedly nothing but 3D-printed battery prototypes at the CES stand (see image below), though, as well as a static model of a Verge bike, whose motor I wrote about during last year’s CES.

Putting a Spin on It

Though I usually keep it a dark secret, I’ll share that I did spend over a couple of decades in technology marketing (not to worry, I had a whole leg, not merely a toe, in engineering during my crossing over to the Dark Side).

Rather than be the portly guy in a dark suit (I’m talking about myself here, not the Donut Lab spokesman at CES who seems to share my curves), I have a whiz-bang battery that works, that’s in production, and a motorcycle in my CES exhibit.

Yeah...put the bike up on its center stand and run its rear wheel, that beautiful, black, hubless, in-wheel-motored wheel, at low rpm the whole day. The whole freaking day, each day, three days of the CES, because at about 166 W (math is easier in my head) to turn that fat rear wheel for a show shift of 6 hours is a kilowatt. I’d use 3 kW over the three days, and my 20 kWh worth of onboard whiz-bang SSB would be, like, “meh.”

But that’s not what they did. 3D-printed boxes that were allegedly claimed to be batteries, and some kind of battery charging of a cell defies the understanding of a PhD (see video below).

If your solid-state battery really does work, DONUT, go ahead and send me that 20 kWh worth of unpackaged pouch cells that I need by the end of February (you’re in production, so no sweat, right?). Then I can tell our readers about them and use them in my heavy-lifter DARPA drone from delivery through summer. Heck, I’ll even return the ones I don’t auger into the ground so you can do my spinny back wheel demo thing at CES 2027. You only need 1 in 7 of my SSBs to do that.

Here’s the worthwhile video for our readers to watch on Donut Lab’s SSB, which I mentioned earlier, if they want a contrarian perspective to what almost everybody out there is reporting on the SSB. I personally think Donut’s been dunked and their SSB is SBS, but that’s just my opinion. They may make me lose face by shipping me working cells for my drone project, which is perfectly fine in my book.

Enjoy,

AndyT

Andy's Nonlinearities blog arrives the first and third Monday Tuesday of every month. To make sure you don't miss the latest edition, new articles, or breaking news coverage, please subscribe to our Electronic Design Today newsletter. Please also subscribe to Andy’s Automotive Electronics bi-weekly newsletter.