CES is a land of daring bulletins of wonderful, revolutionary merchandise and applied sciences that can revolutionize the world, typically set for launch in two years’ time. Twenty-four months appears to be about the appropriate hype window: shut sufficient to generate pleasure and funding, however far sufficient that everybody forgets about your guarantees earlier than that deadline quietly comes and goes.
It was CES 2018 when Henrik Fisker made such a proclamation, saying that his group of gurus had cracked the code of solid-state batteries. By 2020, he stated, these batteries can be in mass manufacturing. The automobile was the EMotion, which by no means did come to market. By 2021, the corporate had given up on the solid-state dream, and by 2024, the entire operation went bust.
In Las Vegas at CES 2026, it’s time for one more daring proclamation a couple of small group of engineers which have discovered strong state. This time it’s Marko Lehtimaki, cofounder and CEO of Donut Lab, an EV expertise startup that spun off from Verge Motorcycles (no relation to The Verge). Naturally, I’m skeptical, however there’s one key distinction that’s giving me hope: Lehtimaki says the Donut Battery isn’t 24 months away. It’s in manufacturing proper now.
When you’ve not been using the hype wave round strong state, the promise is for a battery cell that’s low-cost, gentle, fast-charging, cool-running, energy-dense, and combustion-free. They’re nonetheless conceptually the identical battery design because the previous couple-hundred years. Which means an anode on one facet and a cathode on the opposite, separated by an electrolyte throughout which charge-carrying ions can scurry backwards and forwards because the cell is charged or discharged.
In a conventional lithium-ion cell, the electrolyte is a liquid of some type. In a solid-state battery, it’s, in fact, a strong. That will sound like a small shift, but it surely has large ramifications, the most important being efficient sturdiness. Like solid-state electronics, there’s nothing that wears or breaks down, which suggests an enormous improve in sturdiness, charging pace, and power density.
For its solid-state batteries, Donut Lab is itemizing some unimaginable figures. To begin with, there’s an power density of 400 Wh/kg, which is a couple of third larger than that of a contemporary lithium-ion pack. In different phrases, 30 p.c extra vary in an EV with the identical weight battery pack.
It has large ramifications, the most important being efficient sturdiness
Regardless of that increase, Lehtimaki says these cells are literally cheaper to fabricate. These batteries will seem first within the Verge TS Professional, and Lehtimaki informed me that swapping to those hyper-advanced new cells really diminished price.
“The invoice of supplies went down, and it’s happening with each different vendor shopping for on the price that we’re promoting them,” Lehtimaki says.
Donut says the batteries can take a full cost in as few as 5 minutes, which might lastly imply an EV that prices as quick as you possibly can gas up a automobile.
For this primary utility, although, it’s a bit slower: 10 minutes within the Verge TS Professional. The corporate can be being slightly conservative relating to the lifespan of the cells. The place Donut Lab guarantees 100,000 cost cycles earlier than the battery is worn out, Verge says 10,000.
Even that may be a radical enchancment over the roughly 1,500 cycles that you simply may anticipate out of a typical lithium-ion EV battery pack. 100,000, although, is a complete sport changer, making a battery that can simply outlast the automobile it was created to energy.
“The cycle life, the residual worth of the battery, is definitely one hundred pc after the lifetime of the automobile. So it turns into the one element that retains its worth, and you should use it as a house battery, or no matter,” Lehtimaki says.
There are different implications, too. Lehtimaki says that Donut Batteries are extraordinarily thermally steady, providing practically full capability, even right down to -22 levels Fahrenheit. Which means it is going to additionally require much less cooling. I spoke with Neil Yates, founder and CEO at Watt Electrical Car Firm, an EV platform maker that makes use of Donut Lab’s hub motors in its merchandise and is seeking to adapt the brand new batteries onto its platform as properly.
“There can be no actual lively cooling requirement in any respect,” Yates says, due to the Donut Battery’s thermal resiliency. “We do some bit to handle the enclosure by which they’re, however that’s enclosure administration, quite than particular battery administration.” No lively cooling means much less plumbing required within the automobile, saving much more weight.
“There can be no actual lively cooling requirement in any respect.”
And, once more, that is all stated to be taking place now. Lehtimaki says that the cells are actively in manufacturing in Finland, with preliminary manufacturing capability of roughly one gigawatt-hour. However, he says Donut Lab can rapidly spin up new factories within the U.S. if there’s adequate demand from American automobile producers.
That’s aided by a battery chemistry completely freed from any type of battle or troublesome supplies that is perhaps topic to tough import or export rules or tariffs.
Which may level to one thing like a sodium-metal building, however Lehtimaki wasn’t prepared to speak specifics. In truth, there are various particulars that we’ll have to attend for readability on, together with how Donut Lab managed to unravel the so-called dendrite difficulty. This problem has stymied many solid-state startups, a battery flaw that’s slightly like a microscopic stalagmite rising from anode to cathode throughout the solid-state electrolyte. Once they bridge throughout, you get a catastrophic quick and, doubtlessly, a whole lot of smoke and fireplace.
How did Donut Lab remedy this difficulty the place many main corporations have failed? He credit having a small, agile group. “The social gathering that has the potential after which iterates sooner is the one which clearly makes the innovation,” Lehtimaki says. “I’ve all the time stated that 20 engineers beat 2,000 engineers.”
There was hypothesis on-line that Donut Lab is utilizing expertise from one other Finnish startup, Nordic Nano, a renewable power firm that Donut Lab has invested in. Lehtimaki even serves as a board member at Nordic Nano, however says that’s not the supply of this product. “It’s not from them,” he says.
Lehtimaki says that Donut and Verge Bikes’ engineers have been quietly engaged on battery designs since 2018, and that is the fruit of all that labor. The place are the patents? They’re coming, Lehtimaki says, and promised to have much more particulars to share inside the subsequent few months as soon as they clear.
There are many causes to be skeptical right here. There are some uncanny parallels between Lehtimaki’s claims and those who Fisker made again in 2018, together with speak of smaller variations for telephones. However not like Fisker and all the numerous different solid-state prognosticators and promisers of mega-range, insta-charging EVs, Lehtimaki isn’t giving himself that 24-month window to exploit traders earlier than fading into the sundown. He says all can be confirmed in only a matter of weeks. That alone offers me motive for optimism, however on the very least I gained’t have to attend lengthy to be upset.
Images by Tim Stevens
