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Donut Lab’s all-solid-state battery delivers 400 Wh/kg of energy density

donutlab.com

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Re: Donut Lab’s all-solid-state battery delivers 400 Wh/kg of energy density

#61

Post by Animats »

Animats wrote: post #9
cyberax wrote: post #4

No physical address, no patents, no mentions of independent testing, the whole "drag&drop OS to build EVs". Totally legit.

You can supposedly go see the bike at the Verge store at Westfield Valley Fair, 2855 Stevens Creek Blvd., Santa Clara, CA 95050-6709. That's a large mall near Apple HQ. Open until 9 PM. Someone in Silicon Valley should stop by on their way home today and take a picture. You can't just pay $35,000 and ride it away, though. They're just taking pre-orders. Still, at least you can go kick the tires and make sure it's not…

A bit more info:

First, the bike is not new. It's been shipping since 2024, with a conventional battery pack.There are customers and reviews.[1] The "hubless" thing is less hubless than it looks. The rear wheel is the motor, with an outside moving rotor and an inside stator. The stator has a big hole in it. This gives you a large-diameter direct drive motor without dead weight in the center. It also opens up space in the frame to put the battery closer to the ground.

So this is really just an existing bike with a new battery. If they offered a test ride, you'd never know whether it was a solid state battery or not, since that's all about capacity and charging speed.

[1] https://www.wired.com/story/first-ride-verge-ts-pro-electric...

Re: Donut Lab’s all-solid-state battery delivers 400 Wh/kg of energy density

#62

Post by brokencode »

Aloisius wrote: post #47
nomel wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you look at the history of the lithium ion battery [1], this is exactly what happened, except from a single man. none of the existing manufacturers could stomach the shift to something new, except for sony, which needed a better battery for their camcorder, eventually resulting in a nobel prize. [1] https://youtu.be/AGglJehON5g

No company involved in lithium ion batteries just popped up out of nowhere. Whittingham worked for ExxonMobil . Akira Yoshino worked at a joint venture of Toshiba and Asahi Kasei . And Yoshio Nishi worked at Sony . They were all giant well-established companies.

Plus, every major battery and car company is chasing solid state battery technology as the holy grail. And lots of startups.

Re: Donut Lab’s all-solid-state battery delivers 400 Wh/kg of energy density

#64

Post by _heimdall »

Aloisius wrote: post #47
nomel wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you look at the history of the lithium ion battery [1], this is exactly what happened, except from a single man. none of the existing manufacturers could stomach the shift to something new, except for sony, which needed a better battery for their camcorder, eventually resulting in a nobel prize. [1] https://youtu.be/AGglJehON5g

No company involved in lithium ion batteries just popped up out of nowhere. Whittingham worked for ExxonMobil . Akira Yoshino worked at a joint venture of Toshiba and Asahi Kasei . And Yoshio Nishi worked at Sony . They were all giant well-established companies.

When I was buying lithium ion cells a few years ago for a custom off-grid battery build, CATL cells had the best reviews and testing results around.

They were founded in 2011 as a spin-off from ATL, itself founded in 1999 by a Chinese billionaire (Robin Zeng). They definitely didn't pop up out of nowhere.

Re: Donut Lab’s all-solid-state battery delivers 400 Wh/kg of energy density

#65

Post by Qwertious »

_carbyau_ wrote: post #25

Seems vaporware at the moment. But has anyone else had thoughts on how solid "solid state" batteries are? IE could the frame of my next motorbike be made from solid state batteries?

Solid doesn't mean structural strength. Uncompacted snowflakes are solid, nobody builds things with them (igloos etc are compacted or ice).

Re: Donut Lab’s all-solid-state battery delivers 400 Wh/kg of energy density

#66

Post by tomhow »

bigwheels wrote: post #26

[flagged]

Please don't post curmudgeonly, sneering comments or shallow dismissals on HN. We're here for curious conversation that engages with the content of the article, not reflexive, blanket dismissals based on stereotypes.

Please take a moment to read the guidelines and make an effort to observe them in future. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Donut Lab’s all-solid-state battery delivers 400 Wh/kg of energy density

#67

Post by amarant »

cogman10 wrote: post #54
cm2012 wrote: post #50

If true, would have massive geopolitical implications. 1) China has gone all in on batteries. A competitor from Finland would be shocking. Scale is the real issue. 2) Luckily Finland hates Russia so this probably can't be used for Russian drones

Nah. Being able to scale out is far more important than the underlying tech ultimately. I'd expect that China would pretty quickly copy this if it proves out and would likely start outstripping them.

I don't really see why Finland would be unable to scale production though? Expensive workforce? Surely that could be worked around, Sweden still produces semis and have similarly costly workforce. What other impediments do they even face?

Re: Donut Lab’s all-solid-state battery delivers 400 Wh/kg of energy density

#68

Post by 1970-01-01 »

So solid state battery tech is very likely on-schedule for mass production over the next 4 years. There really isn't much time left for the haters to post stories attempting to factually dismantle and dismiss EVs before EVs pass the 51% adoption curve in 2030.

Re: Donut Lab’s all-solid-state battery delivers 400 Wh/kg of energy density

#70

Post by Alex2037 »

nine_k wrote: post #45
slaw wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 MW chargers don't look any bigger than standard chargers. https://insideevs.com/news/761403/byd-thousands-megawatt-cha...

The thickness of the cables is often due to their water cooling. Transferring 1 MW at 99.9% efficiency means 1kW escaping as heat.

that depends. transferring 1 MW at 1 MV produces very little heat
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