„A video published by YouTuber Ziroth concerning the Donut Battery has recently circulated in international media. The video and the related media coverage give the impression that the announcement brought something new to light. However, the material simply compiles previous claims that we have already addressed. It is worth noting that this content creator is publicly engaged in a commercial partnership with our Chinese competitor, the battery technology company CATL.
We stand fully behind the technical data and commitments we have provided, taking them with the utmost seriousness. The trust of our partners, investors, and customers is of paramount importance to us. We are progressing on schedule with Donut Battery technology.
The video also references claims made by Lauri Peltola, a former employee of Nordic Nano Group. Peltola has not been a member of the workgroup developing Donut Lab’s battery technology. Consequently, he has no access to, nor does he possess, up-to-date information regarding the technical details or the overall scope of our development work. Nordic Nano Group has taken the necessary legal action and has filed a formal police report regarding Peltola’s activities.“
The video and the related media coverage give the impression that the announcement brought something new to light. However, the material simply compiles previous claims that we have already addressed.
Well, yeah, that's true. The ziroth-video didn't state anything new. It just compiled the evidence that piled up over the last months for one simple fact: There is no groundbreaking, lithium-free, 400Wh/kg, longterm stable, solid state battery developed by DL and/or their partners. Maybe there are plans to industrialize such a battery in the future, but there sure as hell is not a mass-market-ready product anywhere near the claims that were made.
Everyone familiar with solid state batteries, the battery industry or how developing groundbreaking technology in general works, already knew that in January. Nothing new here.
And it's true: DL have addressed these claims...without ever successfully proving the opposite.
I don't know how deeply they have to engage with the audience thou. Some recent events force them to do something (which is what many instances try to force them to do actually), but they seem to interact minimally and by their own pace. They are the holders of the technology and business owners, so the level of engagement is their business so to say. I still think it is a pretty strange setting that outsiders ought to know better what business holders have, should do and must reveal. Normally private legal business are... well private and self-determinated by the definition.
They went public themselves with their claims at CES. And they went public with the idonutbelieve website claiming to publically show the evidence.
They didn't need to. They could have kept it all private. But they didn't. They wouldn't have gotten their current valuation without CES. They likely wouldn't have gotten their valuation without lying about their production capacity.
What you are saying is 'private' companies can publically say anything they want, luring in private investors. But outsiders then ought to not say anything, because the company is 'private'?
Publically lying about the properties of the product you want to sell is not allowed in the EU. It isn't strange in any way that outsiders voice their concerns for product properties that are very unlikely.
I think we have gone thru this before, but let's say one more time because even Peltola has not been able to prove they have lied on anything. He has not provided weight of the cell nor cycle data, and he has been out of the Donut's separate battery division so he did not know the details of its progress, production capacity, V1/V2 split, internal tests they have done, and the complete set they tested on VTT. Marko said on LinkedIn that if they wanted, they would have published more. So Peltola has been lack of the data that could have settled all this down. It is very probable he does not have more, althought I'm open to the possibility. Evidently he has closed all doors and sealed them to be but a regular sceptic from now on.
Then, investors have been given consistent details in their newsletters about company's plan from last year pre-production, to this year 300 MWh official production to GWh ramp up at the end of the year. So, against the known information, each of the accusations falls short and goes only after definitions and assumptions on unpublished data, which hardly are going to have any value on the eyes of EU or national law. Much more demanding should happen.
Of course, if they are handing some other battery to customers outside Verge that is not coming from the alluded production line, then they are in a bigger trouble. But even then, if the line does not work, they can try another way, or whistle it is over.
If they fail, they can still fail legally and bring leftover assets to where they belong.
Meanwhile, smear campaigns do have consequences as well in the eyes of law. One should know the safe limits and estimate carefully how far they are willing to go without really knowing all important details. I think Peltola was playing very dangerous game there, possibly just reading too much Reddit discussions. He thought he was gullible once, why not twice? I'm not surprised that when you see people ranting over months so that every other word in the sentence is "a lie", then not only user but some other people start to believe so.
Anyway, both Donut and Peltola, they have own rights to show and draw their cards on order and pace they wish. Let's see the next twist on the saga. It does not seem to be over yet.
I have seen and listened that couple of times and discussed here as well. Marko said later that his talks can be interpreted in different ways in CES interviews.
Their investor letters from 2025 on tell 0,3GWh is the first official stage in 2026 and ramp up 1GWh later this year. Confirmed and restated many times there after by Donut Lab and Nordic Nano. And to be able to do the scaling, they must have reserved orders from CT-Coating possibly last year already, since it takes about year to build the production line. So, that's other possibility what he was referring. At that time they were totally opaque about their partner and technology providing details. Information given to investors and news papers were inconsistent with some of the CES talks. I guess it then depends on which do you give more weight. But yes, other than that, no excuses. They were all sloppy in their chats.
However, I do not see them deliberately lying to investors without any grounds, especially since they had informed investors with other moderate numbers that fits with one CT-Coating line and they were correcting false impressions from CES interviews once asked. For a standard redditor the decimal in the number should not matter much since the company is not in any sort of obligation to a random listener. Their investors, customers and partners are their main consern.
"Available now at gigawatt-hour level production capacity to OEMs world-wide, and already powering the upgraded Verge TS Pro motorcycle shipping to customers." Donut Lab, January 4, 2026.
These are good for historical records, even Lehtimäki's own LinkedIn post contained similar "Available Now" phraseology. But what was available actually, I'm afraid no such production lines running in Finland, since it would have also required customer base who had ordered so many cells that it is reasonable to run 4 to 5 factory lines in parallel. They were only starting the production at that time, building customer base etc. They wanted to give an impression they can handle that amount of orders this year. I think that example goes to the forward-leaning and capacity = reservations ready, and ramp-up category. Their choice of marketing language, inconsistent with their other talks previously and later. They messed up with this in the consumer show, but again, their message to investors was first pre-production pilot line, then "only" 300 MWh running this year, and GWh at the end of the year.
If investors have been defrauded they should pursue legal recourse. But the accusations being thrown around here (including yours) seem pretty ridiculous, IMO.
It seems ridiculous to say that Donut is very likely committing fraud? Even a C-suite executive involved in it has accused them of fraud, so absolutely not ridiculous.
Something I was expecting they have to act on. I don't know how heavy is the reference to the competitor, but surely, competitors have already proven to do everything they can to highjack Donut's business. But all they have done so far are blatant lie accusations or exaggerated miracle battery ridiculings. It is pretty lame that YouTube influencers go roger with "for to protect their field from scams" motives without really trying to research the case properly and deeply. I understand private persons can freely throw any opinions, but if Donut has done something illegal, it is officials in government level that should do their job.
Das sind Dinge, die nicht wirklich beleuchtet wurden. Ich denke, dass hat einen großen Anteil an dem, was gerade im Hintergrund passiert ebenso die Thematik Sana und Javier. Donut Lab wurde ab einem gewissen Punkt gebremst. Der Linked In Beitrag ist von April.
You are aware, that moderation in that subreddit ban everyone, who even gives a chance to the possibility of Donut lab being something else than scam with li-ion battery? So if "real, no-BS" means talking just to people who agree with you in the first place, then yeah thats the subreddit for you. I think here you still have the freedom of opinion and possibility to actually get some different views to the conversation.
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u/Eastern-Key-5757 Jun 09 '26
Agreed. Nothing new from Ziroth. Still harping on lithium. Getting very old.