This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
3D printed quantum solid state AI fusion reactors on asteroids is the future!
Really, how is that possible? The company making absolutely ridiculous claims that are in no way possible and are instantly a red flag for anyone whos ever touched tech with a 20 foot pole instantly sees is lying about there mystical miracle tech?
The problem is there are multiple tech companies involved, all bullshitting each other. It starts with a German screening technology company claiming they can screen produce the solid state electrode, when they never made a single battery ever. if company A can develop the tech then company B can assemble the battery to do into the motorcycles in company C.
Formula E racing uses the state of the art in batteries, and for 2027 they sourced a lithium battery even though cost was no object.
Two Chinese companies claim to be making solid state batteries, put the performance is only equal to classic lithium.
Toyota got burned on this. They were promised SS batteries delivered by 2025. Never happened.
Donut Labs was also looking for funding from a large number of smaller investors, none of which had the knowledge or capability to really look into what was going on
Aaw crap, if that ever happened to me it would really bum me out if I had good intentions.
I'd be bummed too but it would mean I probably didn't do the basic due diligence for my job
Just fyi, you can make a solid state lithium battery. It's just the only benefit for it is less weight for the same space rather than increased energy density.
TBF, Something in the vague range of the battery they've been promising is actively in development in a bunch of skunkworks, but it's still a long way off if it ever comes to fruition. If they did manage to make a sodium ion battery, it would have been a huge deal.
But they didn't, and when it does happen, it won't need to be used to sell motorcycles.
If they did manage to make a sodium ion battery, it would have been a huge deal.
CATL already have a sodium ion battery they're prepping to market.
There were also a couple other manufacturers that were in a similar position 6 months ago before lithium prices dropped and drove them into bankruptcy.
Announcing sodium ion batteries for consumers was enturely realistic. The issue is that Donut Labs claimed they had sodium solid-state batteries, which are years if not decades away
Industry experts who met with CT Coatings representatives doubted their technical skills. Julian Zanau from the Fraunhofer Research Institute recalled concerns following discussions with company officials.
“The first impression I got was that these people have no idea how a battery actually works. They were talking about no rare earth metals in their batteries and therefore no lithium, and to any chemist lithium has nothing to do with rare earth minerals.”
🔥
The running theory I had seen was that they were licensing out someone else's tech, and then claiming it as their own.
And now this article shows that to be more true than I had thought.
Meanwhile, there's a company out of Taiwan doing this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQFVIs4leig
The guy cuts a cell in half with a pair of scissors, and as soon as the scissors are pulled away the little LED light comes back on.
These seem like ones tested by GreatScott 7 years ago: https://youtu.be/kJXRyWQgOY4
Same company, their newest cells are based on that tech, but with 7 years of advances, so 360Wh/kg. Which is about the same as most other top end Lithium-ion batteries, just solid-state rather than a liquid electrolyte.
Wild. Did they really think they could just hype this up and release something like this and not get found out?
That's how its done now thanks to assholes like this.
It's worked for their channel so far.
Except they’ve misled investors, and that will get them into deep shit.
Because fuck consumers
Mislead consumers, FTC sleeps
Mislead investors…
What FTC lmao, they're a Finnish company registered in Estonia. Billionaires don't get fast tracked court cases here. They'll move to some other country long before anything happens.
My mistake. I forgot other countries exist.
But yeah I dropped that key point I guess between finishing the article and commenting.
That's why ~Everything is Securities Fraud~
You only get in trouble if you mislead rich investors.
If you mislead poor investors, then that's just business and they should have known better.
Ftfy
Because fuck consumers
Mislead consumers, FTC sleeps
Mislead investors…
Also they just need to make a little donation and I'm sure they will be pardoned.
Pardoned by whom? We don't have presidential pardons in the countries they're operating out of.
Reading the article, the investigation isn't a case of independent labs getting hold of the battery and definitively disproving Donut's claims. It's battery experts and researchers looking at the data Donut has released and saying, "these claims are extraordinary and the evidence doesn't yet convince us. Here's what we think the battery actually is." That's a very reasonable scientific position, especially when you're talking about 400 Wh/kg, 5-minute charging, and 100,000 cycles all at once.
But without independently tested samples, there are still a lot of unknowns and inferences involved. That's not to say the skeptics are wrong, but it's still arguably a case of skeptics being skeptical... reasonably so, but based on analysis of the available evidence rather than direct examination of the battery itself.
This seems to be a smoking gun:
Researchers say the most convincing evidence came from measuring how the cell expanded during charging.
When a battery charges, ions move into the anode, causing it to expand. Graphite anodes have a unique expansion pattern because of changes in graphite’s layered structure. The Donut Lab cell showed this exact pattern.
This finding matters because sodium ions are too big to fit into graphite the way lithium ions do. According to investigators, the graphite expansion pattern clearly shows that lithium is the active ion in the battery.
However they don't mention heat threshold. Other analysis showed the battery withstanding well over the temps lithium ion would, even with a punctured vacuum. I personally don't believe the crazy 400 figure, but I'm not sold either way on it being a lithium ion battery just yet.
Yep, that's a massive argument against Donut. But the question I haven't seen the battery experts address is whether the expansion pattern is unique to the chemistry they believe it is. Are there other chemistries that could produce the same effect? The investigators clearly don't think so, but Donut also isn't claiming to be using previously seen tech.
Either way, it's not looking good for Donut. The burden of proof is, and always has been, on them, and they have a looooong climb out of the hole they've dug.
Regardless, Ziroth and others make a good point that Donut's marketing games are damaging to the industry. Other legitimate players seeking investment will be tarnished by Donut's antics. So even if their tech turned out to be legit, they're still going to be a bad actor.
Technically, they have a very short distance to climb if they wanted to: just give the battery (or preferably multiple batteries) to an independent 3rd party to test to their hearts content. If they aren’t full of shit, that’d clear things up in an instant. If someone can show their claims are true, that’s all they need.
If they are completely full of shit, then there’s no no way out of the hole. I think this is unlikely given the carefully selected tests they’ve already released— they have… something. It likely isn’t an entirely non-existent product appearing only on paper.
If they are only partially full of shit, in that they have a battery that is decent or better than current batteries but not totally fulfilling their claims, then it’s a moderate hole to climb out of. Some egg on the face, but survivable.
If they are substantially full of shit, with batteries that are equivalent or worse than current batteries, then they’re gonna be laughed out of the market real fast. Probably mentioned in the same breath as Peter Molyneux, for similar reasons.
“There’s a problem loading the page.”
Yeah, your overly intrusive advertising.
God damnit, Donut!
New achievement. You've been mentioned on a comment on Lemmy.
Somebody got some splainin' to do.
that product image looks like a SSD ngl
Ai slop
Dang, was just seeing a bunch of YT vids popping up about this, how it was going to be big if true.
If they are really a fraud, how did they think they wouldn’t get caught??
If they are really a fraud, how did they think they wouldn’t get caught??
That's how Ponzi schemes work. See this thing?
Under $50,000! All carbon fiber! Solar powered! 1,600 km range!
This thing has been vaporware since 2009, company started 20 YEARS AGO -4,000 suckers signed up.
It went chapter 11 in 2011.
Bought by a Chinese company, " company stated it would manufacture 5000 vehicles by the end of 2012".
total to date: 0.
On December 8, 2020, the company presented a driveable prototype and started accepting reservations. By December 14 the company had over 3000 refundable preorders for $100 each. Aptera released its 2021 annual report in May 2022, stating they had 103 employees and over 18,000 reservations for their solar electric vehicle. By mid 2022, the company raised a total of $40 million, planning to get to production by the end of the year.They acquired three buildings in Carlsbad, California, with a combined space of over 100,000 sq ft (9,300 m2). In November 2022 Aptera announced they have redesigned the structural components of the vehicle, and it requires more funding before they can get to production.
total to date: 0.
Aptera announced in April 2025 the company raised a total of $130 million through crowdfunding and $10 million from other investors, and the company requires an additional $60 million before it can start low-volume production.
total to date: 0.
Aptera announced in March 2026 it has raised a further $17M, and plans starting low-scale production no earlier than March 2027 pending raising a further $50 million.
It just goes on and on and no one is questioning the utter bullshit claims of range and solar charging and the lack of a single vehicle in 20 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptera_Motors
But when Elizabeth Holmes did this...straight to jail.
Now in 2026, there are serious safety concerns about vehicles that look like cars but are actually motorcycles. There is a Federal bill to ban these on the table.
They didn't need to keep it secret forever, just long enough to grab more money.
Does this mean the technology is impossible at current then? Or just that the company didn't deliver?
There are several companies making great leaps right now. It is still far from commercially viable yet.
Which is why it seemed so far fetched for Donut to claim they had this battery without anyone knowing they were working on it. It was immediately suspicious.
It is still far from commercially viable yet.
Solid-state sodium is still in the laboratory stage. People assumed Donut was claiming to have developed a solid-state sodium battery due to their "no lithium" statement, but they never specifically claimed they were using sodium.
All solid-state lithium is a bit further along. Korea has pilot plants producing full-sized EV batteries that are being used for testing before they do the final scale up to production. Chinese manufacturers are also basically at the same stage. Those will likely be available in production EVs by 2030.
