en.Wedoany.com Reported - A Finnish battery startup named Donut Lab claims to have developed a "miracle" solid-state battery, but an independent investigation has revealed that its product is actually a repackaged lithium-ion battery. Ryan Inis Hughes, host of the YouTube channel Ziroth, collaborated with over 20 independent battery experts to investigate the company, uncovering significant inaccuracies in its public data. The incident has prompted an investigation by Finnish authorities and has been dubbed by some media as the "Theranos" event of the battery industry.

At the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show, Donut Lab CEO Marko Lehtimäki claimed that its solid-state battery had an energy density of 400 Wh/kg, could be cycled 100,000 times, charged in just 5 minutes, and had already been shipped in mass-produced vehicles. The company's valuation once soared to $1.25 billion, and it raised approximately $25 million from thousands of small investors. However, its technical claims showed flaws even before scrutiny by independent experts. A former Chief Operating Officer of Nordic Nano Group, acting as a whistleblower from a partner company, pointed out that the battery specifications announced at CES were inaccurate.

A scientist from the Fraunhofer Research Institute, who had communicated with the startup's technology provider CT Coatings, stated that the company's personnel "fundamentally did not understand how batteries actually work." Further investigation revealed that a partnership with a motorcycle company was only in the development and testing phase, and Donut Lab had not equipped its batteries in the first batch of mass-produced motorcycles as it had claimed.

Multiple scientific analyses confirmed that the cells submitted by Donut Lab for testing were actually high-nickel lithium-ion batteries (NCM chemistry). Key evidence includes: the voltage curve precisely matching that of lithium-ion batteries; the "kink" feature in the battery's physical expansion curve at around 50%-70% state of charge being consistent with lithium-ion batteries. Additionally, the measured energy density was only 298 Wh/kg, far below the claimed 400 Wh/kg.

Currently, the incident has left over 1,300 small investors facing potential losses. According to reports, Finnish financial regulators and criminal authorities are investigating the case.

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