Is that this the world’s first solid-state battery?

CES is a land of daring bulletins of fantastic, revolutionary merchandise and applied sciences that may revolutionize the world, usually set for launch in two years’ time. Twenty-four months appears to be about the precise 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 staff of gurus had cracked the code of solid-state batteries. By 2020, he mentioned, these batteries can be in mass manufacturing. The automotive 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 an additional daring proclamation a couple of small staff of engineers which have discovered stable state. This time it’s Marko Lehtimaki, cofounder and CEO of Donut Lab, an EV expertise startup that spun off from Verge Bikes (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.

In case you’ve not been driving the hype wave round stable state, the promise is for a battery cell that’s low-cost, mild, 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 standard lithium-ion cell, the electrolyte is a liquid of some kind. In a solid-state battery, it’s, after all, a stable. That will sound like a small shift, but it surely has big 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 velocity, and vitality density.

For its solid-state batteries, Donut Lab is itemizing some unimaginable figures. To start out with, there’s an vitality density of 400 Wh/kg, which is a couple of third better 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.

Regardless of that enhance, Lehtimaki says these cells are literally cheaper to fabricate. These batteries will seem first within the Verge TS Professional, and Lehtimaki instructed me that swapping to those hyper-advanced new cells truly decreased value.

“The invoice of supplies went down, and it’s happening with each different vendor shopping for on the fee 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 costs as quick as you may gas up a automotive.

For this primary software, although, it’s a bit slower: 10 minutes within the Verge TS Professional. The corporate can be being a bit of conservative on the subject of 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 just would possibly count on out of a typical lithium-ion EV battery pack. 100,000, although, is a complete sport changer, making a battery that may simply outlast the automotive it was created to energy.

“The cycle life, the residual worth of the battery, is definitely 100% after the lifetime of the automotive. So it turns into the one part 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 almost full capability, even right down to -22 levels Fahrenheit. Which means it can additionally require much less cooling. I spoke with Neil Yates, founder and CEO at Watt Electrical Automobile Firm, an EV platform maker that makes use of Donut Lab’s hub motors in its merchandise and is trying to adapt the brand new batteries onto its platform as properly.

“There might be no actual energetic cooling requirement in any respect,” Yates says, because of the Donut Battery’s thermal resiliency. “We do some bit to handle the enclosure wherein they’re, however that’s enclosure administration, somewhat than particular battery administration.” No energetic cooling means much less plumbing required within the automotive, saving much more weight.

And, once more, that is all mentioned 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 shortly spin up new factories within the U.S. if there’s ample demand from American automotive producers.

That’s aided by a battery chemistry completely freed from any form of battle or troublesome supplies that could be topic to difficult import or export laws or tariffs.

That may level to one thing like a sodium-metal building, however Lehtimaki wasn’t prepared to speak specifics. In reality, there are a lot of particulars that we’ll have to attend for readability on, together with how Donut Lab managed to unravel the so-called dendrite subject. This problem has stymied many solid-state startups, a battery flaw that’s a bit of like a microscopic stalagmite rising from anode to cathode throughout the solid-state electrolyte. After they bridge throughout, you get a catastrophic brief and, probably, a number of smoke and hearth.

How did Donut Lab remedy this subject the place many main corporations have failed? He credit having a small, agile staff. “The social gathering that has the aptitude after which iterates sooner is the one which clearly makes the innovation,” Lehtimaki says. “I’ve at all times mentioned 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 vitality 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 discuss of smaller variations for telephones. However in contrast to Fisker and all the various different solid-state prognosticators and promisers of mega-range, insta-charging EVs, Lehtimaki isn’t giving himself that 24-month window to take advantage of traders earlier than fading into the sundown. He says all might be confirmed in only a matter of weeks. That alone offers me purpose for optimism, however on the very least I received’t have to attend lengthy to be upset.

Images by Tim Stevens