- Donut Lab recently announced the first production solid-state battery for motorbikes
- This week, it revealed test results showing the battery’s charging powers
- However, doubts remain about its longevity and practicality
Donut Lab sent certain reaches of the internet into a meltdown earlier this year when it unveiled its first production solid-state battery at CES — apparently beating every major battery-maker in the process. And it’s now released battery test results to help sway the doubters.
The innovative battery pack, which is due to power upcoming versions of the Verge TS Pro electric motorcycle, is claimed to boast 400 Wh/kg of energy density, which far outweighs anything that current generation lithium-ion batteries can offer.
Donut Lab also stated that its battery tech is designed to last up to 100,000 charging cycles, again far exceeding existing technologies. It can also perform in extreme conditions and charge at high rates without the need for active cooling.
This is what has made it so appealing to Verge motorcycles and other compact applications, as the comparatively lightweight battery packs provide superior range and charging performance, without the need for bulky cooling extras that could add a serious weight disadvantage to something as small as a motorcycle.
But some industry insiders hit back at those Donut Lab claims, with Svolt Energy’s chairman Yang Hongxin claiming that “all the parameters are contradictory” and that any technician with basic knowledge would recognize it,” according to Electrek.
In a bid to prove its point, Donut Lab has released results from battery tests conducted by internationally recognized Technology Research Centre VTT, which analyzed charging speeds of the company’s first serially producible solid-state battery.
Where most of today’s actively-cooled lithium-ion battery packs typically charge at 1C to 3C, or where a charger supplies one to three times the battery’s capacity in current, Donut Lab’s solid-state offering managed 5C during tests with only passive aluminum cooling plates (often known as heat sinks) used to dissipate heat.
At 5C, the battery cell reached an 80% state of charge in about 9.5 minutes. The research center then cranked things up to an 11C charge rate, where the cell was charged from 0 to 80% in 4.5 minutes.
During the 5C tests, the cell temperature only climbed from 27C to 61.5C, which is considered the closest to minimal thermal management.
Too good to be true?
It is worth noting that one of the 11C tests was interrupted after the cell’s surface temperature hit the research centre’s 90C safety cutoff, which forced the team to allow the cell to cool and reapply the heat sink configuration.
It wasn’t mentioned in the research notes, but this could be a potential issue for those charging in much warmer climates, where cell temperature could sky-rocket during ultra-rapid charging sessions and greater thermal management could be required.
Despite this, Donut Lab is set to release a number of blog posts and videos, under the catchy umbrella title of “I Donut Believe”, that aim to back up its bold claims from CES.
Seeing as this first test only seemed to cement the fact that its cells can charge quickly, Donut Lab needs to prove to the world that it can do this continuously for the claimed 100,000 charging cycles, as well as demonstrating the pack’s robustness in extreme weather and climates.
There’s also no word on cost or whether this solid-state technology can be scaled to a point where it can be applied to larger electric vehicles in a manner deemed cost effective by the automotive industry.
All that’s left to do now is stay tuned to Donut Lab’s website for further test results, of which the next installment goes live in less than a week. Who could have predicted that solid-state battery technology progression could be turned into a Netflix-style series?
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