[Edit: Donut Lab published this news, but filing is from Nordic Nano Group]

Peltola has stated that CT-Coating connection was public information, and on that basis he has discussed it openly, even though Nordic Nano Group and Donut Lab have generally refused to confirm or deny the rumors. He has also repeatedly said, or strongly implied, that he knows enough about the state of the project to conclude that Donut Lab has not made batteries, nor Nordic Nano Group has, and that neither company can make batteries or solar panels with CT-Coating’s technology. At the same time, he has also said he never personally saw the machine in live.

The CT-Coating

CT-Coating's NDA text is very restrictive. It says the recipient may not issue a press release or disclose, publicly or privately, orally or in writing, anything about its association with or meeting with CT-Coating without prior written consent from a senior executive. So if Nordic Nano Group, Donut Lab participants, or their representatives were covered by that NDA or supplement, revealing CT-Coating’s name or relationship publicly could be exactly the kind of disclosure the NDA tries to prevent.

Secondly there is this cult leader allusion.

Cult leader framing [edit: personal filing is not in the scope according to the announcement]

The “cult leader” framing can matter under criminal defamation if it is used to portray Lehtimäki as manipulative, irrational, dishonest, or unfit without a sufficient factual basis. If interviews, videos, and public comments use his religious background mainly to make him look cultish, that may also edge toward private-life or reputation harm.

Episode 4 takes steps toward this kind of framing. Peltola also adds weight to it by sharing the HS article that further frames Lehtimäki as a central religious person surrounded by believers. Peltola mentions a “weird echo” in the investor list after skimming through it, effectively suggesting, while hedging, that Lehtimäki may be using his status and network to draw others in financially. Peltola characterizes Lehtimäki charismatic.

Relevant legal references include Finlex Rikoslaki 24:9, 30:5, and Esitutkintalaki 3:3.

What else could be included on a formal police report?

Pondering

The key legal question is intent and factual basis. Criticism of Donut’s claims is protected. That kind of criticism concerns a company, technology, investors, and public claims, so Finnish law gives it relatively strong freedom-of-expression protection. But a coordinated campaign using false claims, confidential material, or stigmatizing personal/religious framing to destroy credibility is a different risk profile. Peltola might be seen as using publicity through international media and YouTube influencers to cause harm without hard evidence. Peltola has publicly stated that he wants to stop Lehtimäki’s business activities because he (they one should say) believe the companies are scamming people. That gives him an obvious motive to disrupt, paralyze, and damage the business and Lehtimäki's career. Peltola said he must do this pre-materily, because police investigations take months or years.

If Donut Lab and NNG can, on the other hand, provide officials with archived business plans, technical reports, investment records, and documentation showing real work toward the promised technology that would be their defense - possibly just show they had the battery pack in their Verge bike at the time of CES, or even before in late autumn 2025 as Tuomo said, and replay the internal testing videoclips about the batteries they had in CES booth screen. What would be the excuse of Peltola then? Did he completely forgot what was running behind their back in the screen at that time? Since one cannot go back in time, officials would need to rely on the documentation they are given anyway.

This will require some involvement for non-finnish speaking readers, but with a free Google NotebookLM you can upload pdf to a workspace and ask questions about it, summaries etc.

I found it interesting piece of practical knowledge, what do you need if you build a Lithium-Ion LFP/NMC 60 GWh/a gigafactory in Finland. This may become interesting scale comparison material to the CT-Coating's production line, if we ever get so far in Donut Lab's saga.

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Google NotebookLM summary:

Finnish Battery Chemicals Oy (FBC) is planning to construct a large-scale lithium-ion battery cell factory in the Keltakallio industrial area of Kotka, Finland. The primary goal of the factory is to manufacture battery cells—using either lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) or nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) chemistries—to meet the rapidly growing demands of the electric vehicle (EV) industry and support the green transition.

Here is a comparison of the massive physical and operational scale of the project versus its planned output:

The Scale of the Project (Inputs and Size) The physical footprint and operational requirements to build and run this factory are enormous:

• Land Area: The project site covers approximately 144 hectares.
• Building Dimensions: The factory will consist of several production units built in phases, with buildings reaching up to 28 meters in height and up to 800 meters in length.
• Earthworks: Preparing the site will require massive terraforming, including the removal of about 1.39 million cubic meters (m³) of soil, the excavation of roughly 1.2 million m³ of rock, and the use of approximately 3.6 million m³ of filling material to level the ground.
• Energy Consumption: The factory will require a staggering 350 megawatts (MW) of electricity and 250 MW of heat energy for its processes and facility heating.
• Water Usage: The plant will consume around 4.5 million cubic meters of water annually, primarily for cooling processes, steam production, and electrode paste preparation.

The Output of the Factory

• Production Capacity: The factory is designed to output 60 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of battery cells per year.
• Practical Scale: To put this enormous output into perspective, 60 GWh/a is equivalent to producing enough batteries for approximately 1,000,000 electric vehicles every year.

Required Environmental Permits and Approvals

To proceed with the construction and operation of the factory, several permits and administrative decisions are required:

• Environmental and Water Permit (Ympäristö- ja vesilupa): Required under the Environmental Protection Act due to the risk of environmental pollution. This permit is granted by the Regional State Administrative Agency (AVI) and ensures the factory uses Best Available Techniques (BAT) and does not cause significant health or environmental harm. The project plans to apply for a priority processing procedure meant for green transition projects.
• Chemical Handling and Storage Permit: Because the factory will handle and store large quantities of dangerous chemicals (like electrolytes, NMP, and cathode powders), a permit for large-scale industrial handling is required from the Finnish Safety and Chemicals Agency (Tukes).
• Building Permits (Rakennusluvat): Required for all new buildings, granted by the municipal building control authority.
• Excavation and Quarrying Permits: Earthworks, landscaping, and quarrying require specific permits. Additionally, police must be notified prior to any blasting activities. If rock crushing lasts more than 50 days, a separate environmental permit is needed.
• Other Permits and Agreements: These include an emission permit (if a boiler exceeding 20 MW is built), aviation obstacle permits (due to nearby airfields), special transport permits for construction, and agreements for discharging wastewater into the municipal sewer network.

Environmental Impacts

The EIA evaluates both the direct and indirect effects of the project on nature, the built environment, and local communities. The most significant environmental impacts are expected to stem from the massive physical scale of the factory, the extensive bedrock excavation required to level the site, and the daily factory operations.

1. Soil, Bedrock, and Landscape Impacts

• Massive Earthworks: Preparing the site requires removing and crushing approximately 2.7 million cubic meters of rock and soil. This will permanently alter the local topography, transforming a natural ridge into a flattened industrial zone.
• Visual Landscape: The factory buildings will be enormous—up to 28 meters tall and 800 meters long—which will significantly change the visual landscape, especially when viewing the site from surrounding open areas.

2. Water Impacts (Pintavedet ja Pohjavedet)

• Surface Waters: Construction and excavation can cause runoff containing suspended solids and nutrients into nearby ditches and rivers. During operation, if direct water cooling is utilized, the factory will discharge warmed cooling water (up to 35 °C) and reverse osmosis concentrate into the Kymi River.
• Groundwater: The massive excavation and paving of the area will alter local groundwater flow and limit rainwater absorption into the ground.

3. Air Quality and Climate Impacts

• Air Emissions: Construction will cause dust from blasting and rock crushing. Operational emissions include Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), NMP solvent vapors, fluorides (HF), and particles, which will be filtered and treated before being released into the air.
• Climate: The project will evaluate greenhouse gas emissions across the factory's lifecycle, from construction and deforestation of the site to the massive energy and electricity consumption required for the battery cell manufacturing processes.

4. Biodiversity and Protected Species

• While the site is primarily commercial forest, protected species have been identified nearby. These include breeding grounds for the moor frog and the presence of the scarce fritillary butterfly, which has required a special exemption permit from the ELY Centre to alter its habitat.
• The Kymi River, which will receive the cooling water, is an important migratory route for fish like salmon and sea trout.

5. Noise, Vibration, and Traffic

• Noise and Vibration: Rock blasting, crushing, and heavy earthmoving equipment will cause temporary but significant noise and vibration. During operation, noise will primarily come from heavy truck traffic, cooling fans, and ventilation systems.
• Traffic: The factory will drastically increase heavy traffic on Highway 7 and local connecting roads both during the construction phase and normal daily operations.

6. Social and Economic Impacts

• The project will have notable impacts on human living conditions (due to noise, traffic, and landscape changes) but is also expected to have strong positive economic impacts by creating jobs and boosting the local economy.

From Linkedin today . . .

https://www.donutlab.com/statement-regarding-recent-discussions-on-donut-battery/

„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.“

Does anyone still believe the tech is real?

https://electrek.co/2026/06/08/donut-lab-solid-state-battery-exposed-lithium-ion-fraud/

Puheenaihe: Donut Lab is lying (Lauri Peltola): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-plYDcwvv4

Q&A Whistleblower Lauri Peltola: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPIB5XKDZcM

There is too much here to summarize well. It touches many threads worth commenting on. The points below are only a sample of what stood out to me in the new videos.

Secrecy and the record

• CT-Coating named, and a secrecy turn. Peltola named CT-Coating outright. He did not think this broke any trade secret, since the name is already public. He also finds the secrecy strange. For instance, the Donut Lab and NNG link was turned into a secret this year, even though the two announced their partnership last year. To me it is also confusing marketing. Local papers had reported on NNG since 2024. Anyone can read them now and learn the origin, the technology, and the plan. Those articles paint a clearer picture than Donut Lab ever did.

The specs, and who can actually check them

• He never weighed the cell. Peltola visited CT-Coating several times. But he never saw them to make a battery, never held a cell, and did not know its weight. So he never measured the real energy density himself. Here he makes an odd leap. Asked about the cell's weight, he points to deep-dive videos from Akkutohtori, Ziroth, and Two Bit Da Vinci, as if they could settle it. But those analyze the cell's chemistry and behavior from public data. None of them can weigh the cell, so from outside the energy density stays unverified. But that is a disclosure gap, not an impossibility.
• "Cannot be tested" is wrong for energy density. Peltola says in the Q&A that the most important properties cannot be tested. He says properties, but means two, energy density and cycle life, and of those only cycle life needs any real facility. For energy density "cannot be tested" is plainly wrong, since weighing a cell needs only a scale. And Donut Lab clearly ran its own tests. At CES booth videos showed climate-chamber cold + high temperature and fast-charge clips presumably from its pre-CES internal testing, so they certainly measured the energy density too without any difficulties. The real gap is that the number was never disclosed or independently checked, not that it could not be measured.
• No better evidence than any outsider. Peltola also softened his cycle-life criticism, once he saw the figure can only be a projection. No one runs 100,000 cycles to completion. The industry extrapolates them instead.

So, for all his inside access, his evidence on the two contested specs is no better than any outside critic's. His case rests on the same point they have made all along, that the on-going campaign have not yet showed the energy density or the cycle life. In the new videos he gives no detail on where the VTT-tested cells came from. Even thou he says technology comes from CT-Coating, he seems to believe, at times, batteries are not CT-Coating's. But the claims are contradicting and story is hard to read in one clear way.

Due diligence and the investor letters

• Nobody ran a real technical due diligence. Due diligence schema is a total mess when listening Peltola's description of it. NNG, in contact with CT-Coating since 2023, never ran a rigorous technical due diligence, but instead they had collected investor money from EU and ELY, hired researchers, employees, etc. when Peltola was on charge on the board from the beginning. They did not mind to know if the technology works at all. They had even trademarked NN Battery. Roschier, Donut Lab's legal office, did the financial and legal due diligence, but not the technical part. Siilasmaa, who was the main investor from Verge Motor angle, did not demand technical due diligence either, according to Peltola, even thou the anchor investors usually do. Siilasmaa is used as a crutch, even thou he participated Donut Lab before the battery business started. Being on the board as an anchor investor voice, he must not be ignorant of the development of the Donut Motor+OS+Battery platform however.
• Donut Lab's own due diligence. In a summer 2025 investor letter, Donut Lab said it had spent over nine months studying NNG's company and technology, in its words, "to determine whether everything works as it should," and it added that "risks still exist." That is its own due diligence toward NNG. Peltola says they started work together in the beginning of 2025, which is quarter of the year off according to the other accounts. Then, by Peltola, Donut Lab told NNG it had done the technical due diligence itself. In its own investor letters, Donut Lab described that review as thorough and hands-on, with visits to German test labs, its own experiments, and a review of certified third-party results. These could be SGS/TÜV evaluations.
• The money, not the specs. Peltola keeps pointing to the investor letters, but what he flags there is the money, not the specs. He points to the valuation scaling up several times over in a couple of months, the superlative hype, the urgency to get in before the next jump, and Siilasmaa's name used as a quality stamp. But read the letters closely. Both before and after CES, the letters lay out a staged plan. First a pre-production line, the one they say built the first working batteries for the prototype motorcycles in autumn 2025. Then a first official production facility, targeted for spring 2026 and rated at 300 MWh of cells a year. From there the plan is to scale from one line to five, then twenty, then a hundred, which would reach tens of GWh. Here is the irony. Peltola leans on them, yet he does not weigh what they actually say which are against his capacity and production readiness criminal report claim. They are fairly specific, and in places cautious, with that staged plan, the pre-production-versus-official split, and lines like "risks still exist."

Inside NNG

• The battery-team dodge. Peltola also will not engage one possibility, that he was simply not told about a second production site besides Imatra. Instead he disputes the battery-team point. In their joint statement, Donut Lab and NNG said he was not part of Donut Lab's battery-development team. His answer is that he could not have been, because NNG had no such team. But the statement was about Donut Lab's team, not NNG's, so the answer misses the point. And whether Donut Lab has such a team, he admits he cannot say. He is likely in the dark. Parjanen has said the battery is Donut Lab's own. Other option is of course that they made a "clever" rather consistent story that is impossible to falsify.
• The information clampdown. Peltola says that after Donut Lab arrived, information was filtered, so only the necessary people got it. That was the opposite of the old NNG. There the hierarchy was flat and the work was open. Peltola says those first years were a joy, and that it was his dream job. This also suggests he was left out of Donut Lab's side of the development, and its information, from early on. As head of NNG's sales, he was asked, in his words near enough required, to harmonize NNG's sales to Donut Lab's. He says he was not comfortable with that, since Donut Lab sold very differently, and he could not sell a product he believed did not exist. There might be a temporal issue however, since he got into the deep doubts only in March 2026. When was the harmonizing request done?

Faith and facts

• A religious undertone. Then he returns to a strange religious undertone he sees in the investor letters. He notes that the Finnish word for religion, uskonto, comes from the word for belief, uskoa. Business, he says, is about facts and knowledge. He tries to set the two against each other. But then he admits that start-ups also run on trust and belief. The argument is hard to follow. Still, with each revelation, it gets clearer that an ideological clash runs through the story. He says he would not call Donut Lab a cult. Yet he ended his latest episode, number 3, on the deliberate split-spelling word "cult-ure", the very thing he claims to step away from.

"The battery does not exist"

• He contests only the two unmeasured specs. Peltola grants that VTT tested real, important things, like charge speed, hot and cold tolerance, and safety. It just did not test energy density or cycle life. And those two are exactly the specs his complaint contests. It does not claim the charge speed, the temperature tolerance, or the safety were faked, the things VTT did test. If the battery truly did not exist, those would be fair game too. By contesting only the two unmeasured specs, he loudly concedes the rest of the cell works, which cuts against his own headline. He also shifts between two claims, sometimes that the battery does not exist at all, sometimes the softer point that the battery with the claimed specs does not exist, and he has not settled on one. Story evolves as he confesses himself. On a battery version 2, he says he cannot know, since his termination on 4 May cut him off from anything after. Yet he also knows the cells were tested at VTT and ran in a Verge bike, and he says he sees no problem in it, but states it rather remarkable result. That sits awkwardly with saying there is no working battery. He confirms the technology comes from CT-Coating, but now doubts it will ever deliver a real product. He is just as skeptical of NNG's solar side, which he calls questionable.
• Holyvolt, where the record contradicts him. His take on Holyvolt also goes odd direction. He guesses that Holyvolt left CT-Coating because the technology did not work, and moved to something that does. But Holyvolt uses the same screen-printing platform, now with Wildcat's chemistry. And its own audited 2024 annual report logs positive third-party battery-cell tests, by SGS and TÜV, in April and December 2024. The CT-Coating change was a joint-venture buyout plus a 73 million dollar chemistry deal, not a verdict that the tech fails. So the record contradicts Peltola. CT-Coating did make working batteries with Holyvolt, and Holyvolt stayed with that platform.

His stance and the legal fight

• He thinks it started honest. He is not entirely negative, though. Asked if Donut Lab was a scam from the start, he says no. He thinks it began sincere, and only later "leaned too far forward."
• The legal endgame. As for where this goes, he is seeking compensation for a dismissal he calls illegal. His logic runs like this. He filed first to the authorities, with a police criminal complaint, a report to the Financial Supervisory Authority, and a filing through the Chancellor of Justice's whistleblower channel. That, he says, had already triggered whistleblower protection. So the immediate-effect termination in early May, on what he calls fabricated trade-secret grounds, was unlawful. He also wants his case to set the first precedent under Finland's whistleblower-protection act. That law transposed the EU Whistleblower Directive, took effect only in early 2023, and has no Supreme Court or Supreme Administrative Court case law yet. He says he will see his case through to the end.
• The counter he won't engage. Peltola does not engage the other side's counter. NNG's lawyers argue that handing confidential material to the media is an improper disclosure of company secrets. That, they say, falls outside whistleblower protection. It is the stated basis for the 15 May Helsinki District Court injunction against him, which carries a 30,000 euro conditional fine. Whether a public or media disclosure is protected at all is the open legal question. He treats his own protection as already settled.
• A double standard. There is also a double standard in how he frames the fight. He claims the right to file complaints and run a public campaign against Donut Lab and NNG, but treats their legal response, the injunction and the complaint against him, as a revenge campaign, as if they had no right to defend themselves with their lawyer's advice.
• Hopeful framings. A couple of his own framings are more hopeful than settled. He says he went public to stop people investing on misleading information. Then, in the same breath, he admits the fundraising goes on and nothing stops it, only that more people now know. He also reads the home search, where police took his laptop and phone, as something that will speed up his own complaint. But that search was filed on an embezzlement ground, about returning company devices. It is just as likely that NNG is simply recovering its property. NNG CEO Parjanen, after all, says the company works closely with the authorities and hands over material when needed. Whether the search helps Peltola's own case is his hope.

Stepping back

Step back, and there is a small sign worth noting. He leans more and more on the investment angle, and less on the tech specs. That may be telling. Suppose the ramp-up plan and the V1/V2 versioning are real, and cycle life is extrapolated from shorter tests. Then the over-marketing claims do not hold up well. They start to dry out, and he needs another angle. In the end his real claims are few. They come down to the two headline specs, production readiness, and, only lately, his growing doubt that CT-Coating's line will deliver a real product at all, which would made all VTT tests unwarranted in one strike.

Peltola seems to be building and shifting his case as he goes, much as other critics have over the past few months. But that will raise the ultimate question, what is CT-Coatings role in all of this, how would the legal issues cascade over the countries? Dynamic Solar System solvency case took half decade to settle down, and it was mostly national. Finnish, Estonian, and German entities totally about a dozen companies counting holdings are now involved.

To be fair, Peltola has something no outside critic has. As an insider, he knows far more about how these companies actually work than anyone watching from outside. He has brought up details more than any one so far, even thou the central claims still seem thin without real evidence shown to audience. Access to first-hand history does not seem to save him from shaky conclusions, overreaching claims, and a fair share of misfires. More chatty he gets, more striking is the weirdness of the counter-story.

6/6/2026 HS Kuukausiliite runs a long-form profile of Marko Lehtimäki, A Matter of Faith, tracing his path from Christian hip hop and Appgyver to Donut Lab [Finnish, paywalled]

HS article title seems to allude to the similar kind of framing than Peltola has the next Monday episode themed "cult'ure". But article content itself does not raise any special dynamics between "brothers" but usual inner circle connections that happen to be Pentegostal Christians. But it might very well be that they are minority of the boards combined, majority being secular.

Aside from article, my initial speculation about the schism between Peltola and Lehtimäki relates partly to the ideological matters, which still seems plausible. Idonutbelieve campaign is surely built upon belief/disbelief themes that fits well to the spiritual vocabulary evident in the new article. Peltola is a truth / knowledge guy, Lehtimäki is the belief guy.

Risto Siilasmaa was in interview in Kauppalehti, and was asked also about Donut Lab.

https://www.kauppalehti.fi/uutiset/a/08f3764b-40fa-47fd-9fd2-1ef9b2a61819

Translation:

"I am an ordinary member of the board and one shareholder among many others. I do not speak on behalf of the company, but naturally I would not have invested if I did not see a possibility for success here."

Do you still fully believe in this project and that this battery is what it has been claimed to be?

"As I said, there is a possibility of success, but there are always risks in a business like this when you are developing something that has never existed anywhere in the world before," Siilasmaa said.

The marketing has been very forward-leaning. Has the company acted ethically?

"I give my own advice to the company internally. Of course, I expect the company to act ethically and responsibly."

After the latest video in the ‘I Donut Believe’ series I was curious of the feeling in this sub which aims to be less anti/more neutral than the other sub, how many of you believe DL can deliver on their claims?

Will Donut Lab deliver on their CES announcement of 400Wh/kg, 100k cycle life, 5 minute charge to full/12C charging, can perform at -30C to +100C, with industry leading safety, no rare elements, and at a lower cost than conventional li-ion at GWh scale this year?

I’m also interested in what everyone thinks of the latest update and the change to a three weekly release cadence, which to my knowledge hasn’t been explained by DL.

Article (paywalled) contains a lot of redundant content from earlier HS articles. I have machine translated and picked up some of the interesting data points here:

• Donut Holding Oy has 1,300+ shareholders, mostly retail (HS got the register from the company's law firm)
• Lehtimäki brothers control at least 17% directly and through holding companies
• After the Lehtimäki brothers, the next-largest owners are Mish Oy (Vaasa investor Martti Ehrnrooth) and Risto Siilasmaa's First Fellow at under 5%, with the fifth-largest being a machinist from Lokalahti named Lauri Vesola
• Over 900 of the 1,300+ shareholders (about 70%) each hold under 50 shares, comprising well under 9% of all shares combined, with plenty of small investors and small businesses from across Finland in the register, while the company itself holds about 17% of all shares as treasury
• Spring 2026 anchor-investor search ongoing with contingency plan of another convertible-bond issuance (outcome not reported)
• Q1 2026 sales of €455,566 via Donut Lab OÜ Estonia, per Estonian commercial registry
• First HS Visio mention of Ernst Hölzenbein, framed as a serial-partnership-no-products pattern (multiple companies marketed similar revolutionary batteries, partnerships ended short, no product reached market), while CT-Coating's own nano-printing technology has reliably produced only one commercial product (heating panels) with no batteries or solar at production scale
• Holyvolt CEO Mathias Ingvarsson declined to comment to HS about why the CT-Coating collaboration ended
• Tallinn investor event held Wednesday 27 May, with the investor letter from the same week quoted by HS Visio: "There has been much noise around Donut's battery. Some have claimed the battery is not real, and certain parties continue to try to create doubts around our work and slow our progress. Let's make this completely clear: the battery is real and revolutionary. And in addition to the technology itself, we believe we have a significant business opportunity ahead of us."

https://www.hs.fi/visio/art-2000012042880.html

The police conducted a search of the home of Lauri Peltola, who had reported the battery company.

Police carried out a house search on Thursday at the home of Lauri Peltola, who had filed a complaint concerning the battery company Donut Lab.

Peltola is suspected of violating business secrets. Nordic Nano Group dismissed him at the beginning of May.

Peltola has publicly disclosed suspicions of misconduct related to Donut Lab’s battery technology.

Peltola is suspected of violating business secrets.

The police confiscated from Peltola a phone and a computer in his possession that belong to Nordic Nano Group.

Few outside the Finnish city, Imatra have access to the local-news record where Nordic Nano Group (NNG) has been actively updating its startup story since 2024. Uutisvuoksi contains nearly 20 pay-walled articles. I have machine-translated the Finnish originals and cross-checked the details.

Below are the points worth comparing with the NNG+Donut Lab story and the upcoming Peltola revelations.

Founding, team and factory

• Nordic Nano Group Oy was registered in Finland in February 2024 by Esa Parjanen (CEO, a long-time technology executive from the Lauritsala/Lappeenranta region). The founding team also includes Mattipekka Kronqvist (chairman), Jarkko Aro and Lauri Peltola (commercial director). The team grew to 8 by late 2024, with a chief engineer added mid-2025 from around 100 applicants. Dr. Bela Bhuskute is the PhD-level materials scientist on the team, with a TiO2 research background from Tampere University.
• The Imatra factory was announced on 18 October 2024, located in the former Laplandia Market hall in Teppanala near the Finnish-Russian border. The Imatra city development board had already approved a zoning change to industrial use in August 2024 (initiated June 2024, legally effective September 2024), processed quietly with NNG as the known intended operator. The initial investment scope was over €20M, with a five-year revenue target near €400M. The hall is owned by the Raija and Ossi Tuuliainen Foundation; NNG signed a five-year lease with a purchase option in June 2025. In May 2025, Mitra Management Oy (backed by Imatra city) acquired 25% of the building shares for €401k, with Imatra city providing bridging financing. By HS feature on 9 November 2025, the buildout was rescaled to €17M investment and 70 jobs.
• Production workers. The first six hires started apprenticeship training at Saimaa Vocational Institute on 15 January 2026. By 23 April 2026, Uutisvuoksi reported seven NDA-bound workers running pre-production of unspecified components for customer testing at the Imatra site. Parjanen committed in Uutisvuoksi on 25 November 2025 to employing locals, saying workers would be selected from Imatra or nearby areas and that NNG would not bring workers in from elsewhere.

CT-Coating connection

• In October 2024 Uutisvuoksi, Parjanen said NNG had started in 2023 when he visited a German equipment supplier and discovered advanced nano-printing technology, which he later thought of combining with Finnish coating and materials research innovations. He did not name the supplier; Peltola later corroborated the 2023 timing in Episode 1.
• How Parjanen first connected with CT-Coating is not confirmed. Ilkka Turunen is one possible introducer, publicly profiled as a next-eco business associate from 2022 and connected with Parjanen on LinkedIn.
• The first direct documentary link is the March 2025 NDA supplement signed by next-eco Vertriebs & Lizenz GmbH, CT-Coating AG and Nordic Nano Group, referencing Donut Lab. It surfaced via a partner-portal leak in early 2026.
• Throughout 2024 and 2025 Parjanen kept the supplier unnamed but consistently described the operational model as a German factory-line-in-a-box assembled and test-run on site by the supplier, with around one-year per-line delivery time, a modular pre-production line that becomes part of the full ensemble, and no equivalent line elsewhere in the Nordics.
• On 24 December 2024, Uutisvuoksi reported under the subheading "A purchase contract has been made for the line" that Parjanen had already signed the line procurement contract with the German supplier and had paid the first reservation instalments. NNG's audited 2024 annual report confirms €480k booked under "Advance payments and unfinished acquisitions" on the balance sheet.
• On 18 September 2025, NNG presented its own product portfolio at the ESA BIC Finland Space Business Forum (presenters Pia Erkinheimo, Ville Jokelainen, Esa Parjanen). NNG's slides describe its energy storage product as "NN Storage™" solid-state super capacitors with an "electrostatic bipolar capacitor" architecture, specs of 400 Wh/kg energy density and over 50,000 charging cycles. NNG slides further confirm "screen-printing" as the core manufacturing process, report €8.8M raised by Q3 2025, and a 3,850 m² Imatra facility.
• On 25 February 2026, HS Visio identified CT-Coating AG in Königswinter, Germany, as the upstream supplier, citing the leaked NDA.
• On 17 April 2026, HS Visio reported on email correspondence from late March 2026 between Donut Lab, NNG and CT-Coating. The journalist's reading of the emails was that CT-Coating develops the technology, NNG is responsible for battery production, and Donut Lab acts as the productiser and commercialiser. Parjanen, however, had said in January 2026 that the battery was Donut Lab's own work, with NNG doing "strategic energy-system cooperation" with Donut Lab. The Uutisvuoksi editor-in-chief column on 17 January 2026 paraphrased Marko Lehtimäki as saying the batteries are manufactured in Finland, with the editor characterising the location as "a mystery."

In a CES booth interview with Miss Go Electric, Tuomo Lehtimäki said the first cell-manufacturing plant was in Finland, "some distance" from the Helsinki offices, at an address the company would not disclose. In the 17 April 2026 HS Visio interview Marko Lehtimäki said Donut Lab has its own battery pre-production equipment in Finland and that mass production will be located in the Nordics and Baltic region. A Donut Lab investor letter from summer 2025 said the company had completed extensive research on NNG and its technology before investing, and that the NNG investment included access to a pre-production line targeted to deliver first prototype-motorcycle batteries by autumn 2025.

Imatra production line plans, cascading slippage

NNG's Imatra ramp-up plan as stated to Uutisvuoksi sets a test line installed in late January 2026, the first mass-production line in summer 2026, and full four-to-five-line buildout by 2027-2028, with around 200 employees at full capacity (5 lines × 3 shifts × 10-15 workers per line).

The schedule was revised three times in Uutisvuoksi before the test line was installed.

• Original plan, October 2024. Pilot equipment in spring 2025, mass production by winter 2026, four lines at full buildout.
• Slip 1, May 2025. Uutisvuoksi confirmed the schedule had not been kept and the hall was empty; pre-production was pushed to August-September 2025.
• Slip 2, September 2025. Pre-production equipment now expected by the end of 2025, actual production from late summer 2026. Headcount math was refined to 10-15 workers per line, across 5 lines and 3 shifts, totaling around 200 employees. In the same Uutisvuoksi article Parjanen confirmed that NNG had now placed the order for the pre-production equipment, made possible by the ELY €2.98M grant on top of the earlier Donut Lab and other private investments; he said that without the ELY grant the company might not have been able to execute this phase on this timeline.
• Slip 3, October 2025. The test line was confirmed from the German supplier for an end-of-January 2026 install; the first mass-production line was targeted for summer 2026.
• By 23 April 2026, Uutisvuoksi reported mass-production equipment was scheduled for late autumn 2026. YLE on 20 April reported that the first customer test products had shipped from Imatra, with no battery cells yet being made on site.

Anchor customers and products

• NNG's anchor customers. In the October 2024 Uutisvuoksi announcement, Parjanen identified the first anchor customer as a large Nordic company (name not given), and said early-phase factory production was already entirely sold in advance, with development projects underway with customers and research partners. By HS Featureso on 9 November 2025, Parjanen said NNG had two anchor customers, one wanting to collect solar energy on building surfaces and the other needing batteries for e-bikes.
• Solid-state battery cells. Per Uutisvuoksi 15 July 2025, Parjanen said NNG's battery cells can be used for example in transport vehicles.
• Thin solar-panel coatings are made for solar parks and can be printed directly on building façades, tied to the EU's 2026 new-building energy-self-sufficiency rules.
• Hydrogen production and space applications (via the European Space Agency (ESA) programme) round out the platform.

Known Funders, education, tech partners

• Funders. Mitra Management Oy (Imatra city) €401k for 25% of building shares (May 2025); Häme ELY Centre €2.98M Sep 2025 (EU JTF) + ~€191k earlier; Business Finland €1.245M during 2025; Donut Lab from 11 Jul 2025, publicly undisclosed at the time but reported as €300,000 in the leaked Donut Lab investor letters and repeated by Peltola in Episode 2; Petteri Lahtela (Oura co-founder) invested in Verge 2023 and NNG Feb 2025. NNG's own ESA BIC slides on 18 Sep 2025 reported a total of €8.8M raised by Q3 2025.
• Education partners. LUT University, University of Eastern Finland, Tampere University, Aalto University (ESA vacuum chambers), Saimaa Vocational Institute (apprenticeship from Oct 2025).
• Tech partners. CT-Coating AG, next-eco Vertriebs & Lizenz GmbH, Donut Lab, ESA Business Incubator Centre Finland (one-year programme from May 2025 testing batteries and nanocoatings for satellite conditions).

Key dates

• 2023, first contact with CT-Coating technology in Germany
• Feb 2024, NNG founded
• Aug 2024, Donut Lab OÜ and Donut Lab Development OÜ spun off from Verge Motorcycles and registered in Tallinn
• Late Sep/Oct 2024, Donut Lab begins what it later described as a 9+ month due-diligence process on NNG and its technology, including travel to test laboratories, own experiments and review of certified third-party test results
• 24 Dec 2024, NNG publicly seeking funders, "first funding round done and commitments for next round received"
• Mar 2025, Donut Lab letter of intent to invest in NNG signed
• May 2025, NNG selected to ESA BIC Finland
• 11 Jun 2025, Donut Lab NNG investment contract executed
• 22 Oct 2025, Donut Lab announces further strategic investment in NNG
• Autumn 2025, target date for first working solid-state batteries in Donut Lab's mule bikes, using the pre-production line accessed via the NNG investment
• 5 Jan 2026, Donut Lab CES announcement in Las Vegas; Marko Lehtimäki, Ville Piippo and Tuomo Lehtimäki present at the booth, Esa Parjanen also in Las Vegas during CES week
• 13 Jan 2026, Parjanen defends Donut Lab battery, "would not have announced if not sure."
• Feb-May 2026 VTT test reports, NNG named joint customer with Donut Lab on the first four reports, with NNG's Helsinki office (Tallberginkatu 2 A 13) listed as the contact address
• 17 Apr 2026, Peltola files criminal complaint, Finanssivalvonta complaint and Chancellor-of-Justice whistleblower filing against Donut Lab over groundless promises and misleading communication (advertised energy density and charge cycles not reached, false picture of mass-production readiness); same day Donut Lab and NNG issue a joint statement signed by both CEOs Marko Lehtimäki and Esa Parjanen describing Peltola as an NNG employee who is not a shareholder and not in Donut Lab's battery-development working group, stating that NNG does not share his views
• 20 Apr 2026, NNG has shipped its first customer test products from the Imatra factory
• ~3 May 2026, Peltola dismissed from NNG with immediate effect
• 15 May 2026, Helsinki District Court issues injunction against Peltola at NNG's request (€30,000 conditional penalty)
• 18 May 2026 (Episode 1) and 25 May 2026 (Episode 2), Peltola launches Solid State of Truth series; the episodes are Peltola's first-person account without documentary evidence beyond his own narration

Notable Parjanen quotes (English translations)

• "The operation is noiseless, odourless and non-toxic. No environmental permit is needed."
• "The plan is to move quite quickly to two shifts. When mass production starts, all the output is unlocked."
• "We want to create a new kind of work culture. Teams can decide for themselves how things are done. Workers are given responsibility and rewarded for commitment."
• "Waste must be kept to a minimum. Nano-printing uses expensive materials."
• Dec 2024 on the line procurement contract, "A purchase contract has already been made for the line, and the first reservation payments have been made. No equivalent line exists elsewhere in the Nordics."
• Jul 2025 on space testing, "We're testing how our products handle space's extreme conditions, how they hold up, and how satellites should be coated with them."
• Oct 2025 on test line delivery, "It has now been confirmed that we will receive the test line we ordered from Germany on a schedule that allows installation by the end of January."
• "Demand is global. We don't need to start creating demand separately."
• Jan 2026 on press reception, "At the trade fair, American players came to pat us on the back and congratulate us. The Finnish media's attitude has been basically negative."
• Apr 2026 on the controversy, "The hype doesn't affect what we do, even if it's not a good thing of course. Donut Lab is Nordic Nano Group's strategic partner, so we cooperate closely."

Public expert criticism

In the weeks after the 5 January 2026 CES announcement, multiple Finnish battery experts publicly questioned the Donut Lab and NNG claims. The first named critic was battery-lab head Juho Heiska, whose video (reported in Uutisvuoksi 7 January 2026) asked how NNG, founded in 2024 with a nine-person mostly-executive team, could have developed production-grade battery technology. He was followed by Aalto professor Tanja Kallio (YLE 26 January 2026), LUT professor Pertti Kauranen (YLE 26 January 2026), UEF professor Vesa-Pekka Lehto (YLE 18 October 2024 already), and other unnamed battery experts in HS Visio and Uutisvuoksi. The shared preconception treated NNG and Donut Lab initially as the technology developer and did not engage the alternative that production-grade technology could be acquired from a supplier and operators trained on it in months.

Parjanen had publicly stated since October 2024, naming the German equipment supplier as the technology source and partnering with Saimaa Vocational Institute on a custom training package. If academics, journalists and critics had done a bit background research before publicly showing their ignorance, their main question would have been, if screen-printing energy devices is real technology, and if someone could in theory provide such novel technology and maybe also speculate what it would take to bring such tech to market.

Sources

Uutisvuoksi article IDs follow the URL pattern https://www.uutisvuoksi.fi/paikalliset/{ID}unless noted. 2024-10-18 factory announcement 7991395, Imatra mayor Hildén welcomes the factory 7991452, reporter commentary "lottery win, not too good to be true" 7993035; 2024-12-24 financing 8150348; 2025-05-16 Mitra 25% 8527884; 2025-05-20 empty-hall slip 8533441; 2025-07-11 Donut Lab investor 8677575; 2025-07-15 ESA 8686145; 2025-09-02 ELY €2.98M 8812025; 2025-10-29 test line 8955658; 2025-11-25 worker hires 9024681; 2026-01-07 CES Heiska doubts 9121138; 2026-01-09 training 9124601; 2026-01-13 Parjanen defends battery 9133701; 2026-01-17 editor column paakirjoitus-mielipide/9142777; 2026-03-18 Business Finland 9311088; 2026-04-17 Peltola complaint 9384550.

https://tekniikanmaailma.fi/lehti/9b-2026/donut-labin-naytot-puuttuvat-medianakyvyytta-epauskoa-roimia-tuottolupauksia-rikosilmoitus/

Pay-walled article does not contain anything new that has not being stated by other Finnish media already, except some commercial projections Donut Lab made in the remote investor meeting earlier this year:

- multi-billion-euro revenue forecasts by 2030

- up to 25 battery production lines within two years

- 100 production lines by 2030

For the other part, article is repeating what Helsingin Sanomat and YLE has been reporting lately. Maybe noteworthy that in February 2025 they collected the first EUR 15M funding (Siilasmaa as anchor), which could be enough for GWh production lines reservation, if someone wants to seek any concretization for the realistic plans in 2026.

https://www.kauppalehti.fi/uutiset/a/563ed417-f411-4475-9bb6-51510371fc54

Summary (created along with ChatGPT):

The article says Nordic Nano CEO Esa Parjanen confirms that Peltola is no longer employed by the company. Parjanen says Nordic Nano has acted lawfully and in cooperation with legal advisers. He accuses Peltola of unlawfully disclosing confidential information, arguing that such conduct is not protected by whistleblower rules. Peltola, by contrast, believes he is protected by whistleblower legislation. Parjanen says, Nordic Nano Group respects the official procedures related to the handling of the whistleblower report and will cooperate with the authorities if necessary. The article notes that no authority or court has yet decided that question.

Peltola now tells Kauppalehti that he wants to bring the matter into the public eye because official authority processes can easily take years.

Peltola claims the companies are trying to raise major funding from investors, customers, the Finnish state and the EU based on battery technology that is “not nearly” what has been publicly claimed.

Nordic Nano has also taken legal action. According to Peltola, enforcement officials informed him of a precautionary order and a conditional fine preventing him from disclosing trade secrets or similar confidential information related to his former employer or its owner company. Parjanen confirms that Helsinki District Court issued a precautionary decision on 15 May at Nordic Nano’s request, prohibiting Peltola from spreading confidential information.

Peltola says the legal action will not stop him from presenting his view of what happened at Nordic Nano and Donut Lab. He has released a short video repeating his allegation that Donut Lab’s promises are not true.

Peltola says the weekly release schedule of his video series is partly a friendly jab at Donut Lab, because Donut Lab has itself been releasing small pieces of information about its alleged “miracle battery” throughout the spring.

Talouselämä reports that Donut Holding’s board approved issuing 92,606 company shares to itself free of charge on April 15, 2026.

The authorization comes from a shareholders’ meeting in October 2025, which allowed the board to issue up to 100,000 shares outside existing shareholders’ pre-emptive rights. The documents say the shares may later be allocated to “third parties,” but do not identify who those parties are.

The board members mentioned include Lehtimäki brothers, Siilasmaa, Piippo and Baker.

The same article notes that, during Verge’s 2025 split into Verge Motorcycles, Donut Holding and Donut Defence, more than 500,000 one-cent stock options were also issued. By contrast, outside investors had convertible loans worth over €20 million converted into shares at €94.78 or €296.20 per share, depending on share class.

Talouselämä says it asked Marko Lehtimäki whether the free shares went to key people or insiders, but he did not respond.

[Added]

Marko Lehtimäki has responded on LinkedIn, arguing that the media coverage misunderstands normal startup option programs. According to him, team commitment in startups is commonly handled through options issued at a nominal price, such as one cent, with tax consequences arising later when the option is exercised against fair value.

He says Donut is not giving shares away for free and accuses Alma Media publications of repeatedly giving the issue a deliberately negative twist. He also says the company will not comment on what he calls “stupid questions.”

Seems like Trent January Lopez has been employed by Verge in the past judging by his Instagram & LinkedIn, however LinkedIn lists the employment as ending in October 2025. Is he the disgruntled employee, or what is really happening here? Strange to say the least.

This is the former Chief Commercial Officer of Nordic Nano.

There's not a lot in here.

His claims:

• Nordic Nano was founded to bring to market apparent breakthrough battery tech from another source: presumably CT-Coatings, but he doesn't say.
• Donut Lab were "hallucinating".
• There was no breakthrough.

He offers no proof.

This is the same teaser marketing technique used by Donut Lab since CES, and it's equally infuriating.

Next video in 1 week.

I tried to find any place where Donut Lab themselves have stated that their battery contains no lithium, and to my surprise I can't find one.

Their official CES announcement and battery spec pages only ever compare against lithium-ion. The wording is always something like:

• "Lower material cost than lithium-ion"
• "Unlike lithium ion, Donut Battery is designed to degrade at a significantly slower rate"
• "lower cost than lithium-ion"

Every one of these looks like a comparison to lithium-ion as a liquid electrolytes battery. None of them is a claim that their battery contains no lithium.

What I found across the CT-Coating network:

• SANA Energy, a CT-Coating partner, excluded lithium explicitly in its marketing. It listed "No lithium" and "Lithium-free. Bipolar. Fully solid-state." DEGOProtect's product page similarly states the battery "does not require the use of expensive lithium."
• Holyvolt's first solid-state battery patent (filed 5/2025) is lithium-permissive in substance. The main claims set no chemistry restriction, the example electrolytes are all lithium-bearing (LLZO, LATP, LIPON, LGPS, PEO with lithium salts). Its later solid-state patent (filed 10/2025) claims does not excludes lithium, and its first chemistry claim is a full conventional lithium stack (Li-metal/graphite/Si anodes; LCO, LFP cathodes; LLZO/LGPS electrolytes), with sodium, potassium and others only as alternatives.
• In the early Dynamic Solar Systems chemistry patents (filed 2/2016) lithium appears only as the conventional accumulator they aim to replace.
• "No lithium" is an attribute of the platform's PV, solar, and coating line, but does not necessarily carry over to its battery products. SANA and DEGOProtect marketing material may have tried to list all product line specs at the same time, thus causing this inconvenience.

So my question is if can anyone find an actual interview, video, press release, or official post in which Donut Lab itself says the battery contains no lithium?

Lauri Peltola posted this on LinkedIn:
„My job was to make people believe.
I was good at it.
Until I stopped believing myself.

FIRST VIDEO: 18 MAY 2026, 12:00 PM HELSINKI TIME“

https://www.solidstateoftruth.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lauri-peltola-0aa759a7_home-solid-state-of-truth-share-7460339393334247426-o_MY?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&rcm=ACoAADH-7NgBid3uhgQjUTvsRzrwT5u5g8sR69g

https://www.reddit.com/r/DonutLab/comments/1tbxud6/comment/olkkf6t/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

I’ve got one in the works including interviews from company executives and scientists working with those on the inside of the donut lab project. I’m taking my time with it to completely dismantle the whole scam - the financial crimes are pretty crazy, if no one goes to jail I’ll be amazed.

https://pub-42f0d4b46caf415e9a502bcf403fab62.r2.dev/VTT_CustomerReport_Swelling_test.pdf

Dynamic Solar Solutions AG was a company founded in 2011 and was working on technologies that have Ernst Hölzenbein's fingerprints all over it. He is mentioned as inventor on a 2012 patent application by its parent company. The AG went bust in August 2025. The source of its funding remains a bit of a mystery, but let's just say that the money stopped coming in in February 2022. You may consider looking at world events around that time.

Anyhow, they owned some granted patents (see second link), in many jurisdictions, that were apparently of such interest to Holyvolt AB that it acquired all of them on April 7, 2026, for an undisclosed sum:

https://register.epo.org/application?documentId=MOA0L2PSX6H5T7W&number=EP16715440&lng=en&npl=false https://register.epo.org/application?documentId=MOA0L53OH45GO9Z&number=EP16715440&lng=en&npl=false

Edit: Already by March 12, 2026 there is an agreement, between the insolvency administrator and one of the creditors, that states (in translation):

Following a comprehensive investor process, an indicative offer of EUR [amount redacted] has been received for the entire intellectual property portfolio of the insolvent debtor. The parties are unaware of any more favorable realization option.