Solid State Batteries are here! Exclusive Interview with Marko Lehtimäki, CEO Donut Labs and Kieran "Spencer" Cutlan with Verge Motorcycles

Solid State Batteries are here! Exclusive Interview with Marko Lehtimäki, CEO Donut Labs and Kieran "Spencer" Cutlan with Verge Motorcycles Nevo EV News Podcast · Jan 8, 2026

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Welcome back to the Nevo EV News Podcast. If it's Tuesday, it must be Nevo EV Newsday.

On this week's podcast, we have a bit of an exclusive. We have got the CEO of Donut Labs,

which I'm currently coming to you live from CES in Las Vegas. And at CES in Las Vegas, Donut

Labs announced that they have come up with solid-step batteries. And our production ready,

going to be in vehicles, two-wheels, four-wheels, all shapes, all sizes, and verge motorcycles

are actually going to be shipping with that battery in it. So ready to go, ready for production,

we're going to be chatting with Marco straight away, as well as that, we have got small bits

and use the likes of flush door handles are going to be banned or have been banned in China.

We have a brand new charging hub at the Friscati Center in Black Rock. We're going to chat about

the Siamese stats from 2025. The ID Polo interior was revealed a couple of days ago.

This is the Chase Sapphire Lounge at Boston Logan. You got Clam Chowder in New York, 30 Martini,

over 1300 airport lounges and one card that gets you in. Chase Sapphire Reserve, now even more

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and a member of FDIC, subject to credit approval. But for anybody who doesn't know,

my name is Derek Riley. And on this podcast, we chat about all things electric vehicles.

Nevo's Ireland's only dedicated EV platform and we'll be covering where we were this week,

what we've been driving, what we've been doing between the podcasts. If you haven't already

subscribed or followed us wherever you're listening to, please do so. And if you enjoyed the

episode, please leave us a rating and comment. It really helps us out and it doesn't cost

you anything. So I must have been tagged in about 100 posts for people who are in the EV space,

saw this solid state announcement from Donut Labs. And let's go through the top five facts

before we chat with Marco here exclusively live on the podcast. Number one, production ready

versus concept. You can get lab only breakthroughs and a number of manufacturers have come up

with that. But Donut Labs announced that their all solid state battery is already in mass production.

It's not just a prototype. It is shipping in 2026. The first vehicle is going to get it

is the Verge motorcycle, the TS Pro and Ultra. And they're going to be delivered in Q1 of this

year. This makes Verge the first manufacturer in the world to deliver a production vehicle

not 20 to 80% all the rest of it. You're getting zero to 100% in five minutes.

It is a and Marco is going to talk about the charging speed, the C that there is 11 C, I think

he said. Lithium ion batteries that stay slowed down significantly after reaching 80%. So you

don't know that charging curve. The solid state electrolyte is naturally more stable, meaning

it doesn't face the same thermal runaway risks as ultra fast charging. The liquid electrolyte batteries

do massive battery energy density 400 watt hour per kilogram. So that's nearly double the standard

Tesla 2170 cells. The Verge TS Pro this translated into a range increase of 217 miles to 370

miles. Even using the same shape and cradle for the battery. The cell themselves are remarkably

same size as a large smartphone. Extremely durable and temperature resistant. Donut Labs is targeting

a lifetime battery with a design life cycle of 10 was 100,000 life cycles. Additionally,

the battery solves the winter range problem. It retains over 99% capacity at minus 20 degrees

Celsius or 22 minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit. It remains stable and retains over 99% capacity at

100 degrees Celsius and safe because it contains no flammable liquid. The battery will not ignite

even with punctured or crushed. And the last thing really that's a big thing for a lot of people

is the fact that it's sustainable and geopolitically safe. It's green because it avoids rare

conflict minerals like cobalt, nickel manganese and uses abundant materials that can be sourced

globally. Which Donut Labs say makes the battery cheaper to manufacture the traditional lithium ion

cells at scale? So we're hearing all the right things. Marco, as you'll hear in this interview,

is very bullish on listen. People are going to question it. People are going to be skeptical

about it. There's going to be a lot of clickbait out there. But let's get into the interview

with Marco. And after that, we're going to chat with Spencer from Verge Motorcycles as

well. We're here with Marco at CES 2026 at the Donut Lab stand. Marco, big announcement this week.

I was getting tagged all over the place. I'm Mr. Evie Ireland. Solid state batteries are coming.

Tell me why somebody should listen to this podcast for the next couple of minutes.

Well, I mean, we just changed the world a couple of days ago when we

brought into the market the first solid state battery that actually is in production vehicles

and shipping to customers. So there's a lot of people talking about down the line. I

watched your video. It was very good that it was always coming next year. It was coming next year

and still out in Columbus. You didn't walk the walk. You talked the talk. You walked the walk.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and these are in bikes that have been shipping for years now. They just

made a model upgrade. And these batteries are now in these bikes. I'm going to chat to

the verb guys after this, but this section of the podcast in production. So tell me some

of the stats if you don't mind about the battery. Yes. Yeah. So as we stated, we can get to

400 watt hours per kilogram. So that's approximately two times the range for normal use case.

We can do 11C charge time. We can do maybe even a little bit faster, but that's at least

something that we are that anybody can expect from these cells. And that means

five minutes or so charge time zero to full. Of course, you need to have

the charging station that's powerful enough. We also do have solutions for that. So we do 10

megawatt hour 40 feet container packs that can be next generation charging stations

that are mobile that can be moved from solar parks to state to mobile storage locations,

or they can be charging from the grid. But with the solid state charging station,

like mega batteries, you can then get in to the 11C even with the COVID trucks that need 600

kilowatt hour packs. And we can charge them in less than 10 minutes as well with this. So we are

we are going also into the storage space, space mainly to fix the problem of the of the fast

charging. Unbelievable. Yeah, you get a couple of use cases and you can see them here understand

we've got drones, we've got heavy goods. There was also some an interesting with the motor with

regards to not just batteries, donut labs doesn't just do solid batteries. You also do that motor

that we know from the verge motorcycle. Yeah, I mean, so last year, we announced the motor

family of five donut lab and then of course, verge dust motors on their own. We used to

be part of the same crew, not not anymore. But but they are putting these into bikes.

Donut lab on the other hand is focusing on everything else than motorcycles.

But yeah, we have them in cars now longbow announced, the beautiful car that's got like

four of these in them. There's so many much much much more coming on the motorcycle.

But yeah, that's kind of what made us famous last year. Everybody, you go read the comments

from a year ago, and everybody was saying that this is computer generated graphics,

this breaks the laws of physics, it cannot be true. These guys are scammers,

they're just wishing to get investors and all that kind of stuff. And now you start to see

these motors in all types of vehicles on the real roads. We knew that the same would happen

with the battery. So we were like, Okay, let's try to be a bit smarter. Let's announce it at

the point when we are shipping to customers. Well, that didn't change anything did it. So

still everybody's saying that this cannot be true. And I'm telling everybody,

you can literally go and test ride the bike and go charge it at 11. Well, the bike is,

I think, 5060 mainly because there's no mainly because of the decision of not putting any

any anything to cool it for the packaging and optimization or performance. But with bike,

10 minute sub 10 minute charge time is super fast already. But anybody and everybody can

go and test that today. And and and all of that. But but still everybody thinks that it cannot be

true. And but that's fine with us. I mean, for us, what happened is that before the show even

started, we had almost 1000 inquiries from OEMs. And it just keeps growing growing. So we are

busy actually delivering demo units to OEMs now and everything. And of course, there will be a lot

of noise on the internet, because every nobody can believe that a small company that they haven't

heard of has done something that none of the big players who looked at it for two decades.

But I would like to remind that that's how every single innovation in the world was brought

into the world that somebody who's who can iterate fastest, who has the smart people and

can iterate fastest, those are the people who will change things. I mean, exactly the same

happened with a motor. Of course, there wasn't a decade of expectation of can we make in wheel motors

work at the level that there has been for solid state. So it's like maybe 10 times bigger,

kind of, let's say attention or whatever. But it's exactly the same thing. And when we

come to CES next year, everybody will be used to us providing not just solid state batteries to cars

and so forth, but also to energy infrastructure grid balancing data centers and charging

infrastructure and so forth. Marco, you set the bar now every year at CES, there's a big

announcement. So you should be very careful because next year they're going to be expecting

another big announcement. It'll be hard to top this, but we have things in the pipeline

already. So there will be something that will continue to shock the world. And every year,

the year after, they will be seeing products at our stand that actually prove what we announced last

year. But yeah, that's kind of the situation. It's been pretty wild. I have like hundreds of

inquiries from media like every day. But we rather focus on our customers right now.

I was lucky to catch it. Because there's so much inquiry. But of course,

it's great to tell the story and share a little bit of delight. But one of the things that

majority of the people are trying to figure out like what is the exact chemistry and why can't you

just tell us that and all of that. And we have our strategy. We know what we're doing. We are

actually shipping these things in a month's time or some weeks time. Somebody would have opened

one of these bikes. Reverse engineers. What it has and then they will be shocked.

And so forth. We are also starting next week. We are going with our media team to third party

authorities showing the validation process and how every single claim I made is tested by a third

party. And these things will start to then people will start to ask different questions

one after another. But we are not the kind of company that because of the pressure from

the internets that we will then go and spill the beans of what our trade secrets know,

we'll let them figure it out over years rather than say everything. And you were talking about

its actual solid state. There's lots of variations on the solid state. No, this is 100% all solid

states. And the other thing is that there was some speculation like maybe this is some

super capacitor or whatever. Some of this kind of conversation. I'm like, no, these are solid state

batteries. That's it. And you can take one of these cells, put it on a table. After one month

you go and measure and there's no discharging whatsoever. And so these are actual solid state

batteries. It's unbelievable when you can think about the opportunities that I'm in the EV

space. So I think about EV all the time. But as you said, energy storage, drones for

the lightweight, et cetera, et cetera. There are so many applications. You're going to be so busy,

Marco. Well, we will be busy. But the other thing is that we are able to scale production very

fast. And so we are now at gigawatt hour level, maybe can go to two gigawatt hours this year.

Next year we are multiple tens of gigawatt hours already in Europe. Well, some of it in US,

some in Europe, some in Israel and, you know, person golf countries. But yeah,

let's see, it depends a little bit on the off takers, because we are trying to

then build capacity on where there's needs. Very good. Marco, I won't keep you too long,

because as people queuing up to interview, chat to you, not interview, you were talking to

an OEM before I chatted to you. Best of luck with Everton. I'm delighted to catch you

as an exclusive interview on the podcast. I look forward to the best of luck. Thank you so much.

We're here with Spencer from Verge Motorcycles. Spencer, I've seen the motorcycle that fully

charged everything, electric shows, seen it here. Very unique, really interesting design

and in collaboration with Donut Labs, you've also got that in-wheel motor, but now

salad step batteries. Can you tell us a bit more? The future is here. They said it wouldn't be,

but it is. Yes, so Verge Motorcycles is the motorcycle platform that will prove Donut Labs

technology. They've unlocked it and we are the beneficiary of that, which is absolutely amazing.

A lot of people have said it's not a thing, but I can tell you now, I've sat on the bike,

I've ridden it in Estonia, it is real, it's not vapable. Unbelievable. Years ago I saw the

hub-less wheel at fully charged, I said back in the day and Marco was saying that people were

saying this isn't going to work, so he's already conquered that to say that it's an actual

operational electric motor, but now we have salad stage and it's in motorcycles that people

are going to be getting delivered. It's not a theory, it's not coming soon, you can have it,

as you said you were on it in Estonia. We're going to be starting deliveries of

our solid-state battery-powered motorcycles, that's a mouthful, at the end of Q1, so Europe

and in California and the US, we have a whole array of people. We've had up to, I think we've

had 50 reservations already in the last day, just because of the announcement. People are

already waiting for this, yes we're a premium product, but people are willing to pay that

for this kind of technology. So we will no longer make a motorcycle with lithium,

which is in itself a great achievement, but yeah our customers are ready for this and

600 kilometers of range. Yeah because they didn't realize that this was coming and now you're saying

by the way you're getting solid-state and you have the long-range option as well, so people can,

if they've put their order in already, they can reach out and say you know what,

I'd like the long-range option and I'd say there's going to be a few people upgrading there.

Absolutely, yes we built that into our pricing model, is that anyone that has a reservation,

whether it's from 2019 or yesterday, are now being upgraded to the TS Pro with solid-state

and then they get the option then to add on the long-range pack, if you will,

which does unlock the 370 miles or 600 kilometers of range with charging powers of up to 200 kilowatts.

If you're interested in finding out more, we're talking about this in an audio format,

but what I'll do with Spencer afterwards or somebody from the Verge team is actually go

on their stand and go through the motorcycle in a bit more detail or normally a four-wheel

channel, but I think people are into electric vehicles and they like their motorcycles.

It was always a restraint, electric motorcycles were mainly seen as more of a commuter,

whereas Verge are saying you know what, if you do want to travel across country,

this opportunity is there now as well with that solid-state, that charging speed, etc. etc.

Yeah, I mean the TS Pro Generation 1 that is sold and has been selling in Europe

has now been taken over by the Generation 2, but you know that was already the,

it had the Guinness World Record for longest single charge distance, which was 197 miles

in London, and it also had the CCS combo charging at 25 kilowatts, so 30 to 35 minutes we were looking

at, still pretty quick. You're going for a restroom, you're getting a cup of coffee,

you're stretching your legs, you're doing that anyway, so you're charging while you're

doing something else. I always, so my bladder lasts as long as these batteries that people

recommend. We won't get into those personal details, but you're exactly right, you know, and

the thing with cars versus bikes is bikes is a hobby slash profession, whereas you know,

everyone needs a car these days you could say. So there's such a wide spectrum of people,

so people look at our bike and go, that's not our bike for me, or it doesn't have this,

but the Verge TS Pro is our first bike, and if we can produce these numbers,

you wait till we actually come out with a full portfolio, and then people will really be

like, okay, this is very cool, because it already is legit, it already is, you know,

what we have and what is on the road today. So when people start to see that in other

platforms as well, not platforms, sorry, categories of bike, then it will really sink

into the masses, I think. Manufactured in Europe? Yes, Estonia. Very good, and so it has that

European base, but also the benefit now of donor labs out of Finland. In Estonia, Finland,

I've been to countries, there's a ferry that goes across, there's a great synergy there,

great to see that partnership continuing on, and both parties benefiting from each other.

Yeah, I mean, it's critical that we do keep things in Europe for us, it's one of our biggest markets,

yeah, you can argue, economies of scale and China and, you know, the Asian countries that can rival

price, etc., but it's part of our DNA, we want to keep it that way for as long as we possibly

can. It adds credibility in some respect, but also just it gives someone, I think it gives the

Europeans a bit something to be proud of, because we've seen a wave, I don't know if it's the same

in Ireland, but especially in the UK and Europe, the wave of Chinese brands and Asian brands that

have come in with great products, like don't get me wrong, great products, but those legacy

brands are struggling to keep up. So if we can come out with this kind of technology and

maintain the pace, yes, why not? Why not talk about has that been lean, being agile,

being able to do it rather than being stuck in a historical legacy industry that has

maybe manufacturing in combustion engine, they've dipped their toe into electric,

didn't really work out, we won't mention any other brands, but joking aside,

that startup mindset, that bootstrap mindset, you have to have it this day to survive,

no matter what the business is. Yeah, and longevity, you said they was critical, because

a lot of companies, they'll come with this sort of technology and they'll just want to blow up,

they'll want to be anywhere, everywhere now. We don't have that mindset, you know, we're not opening

stores in every single country we possibly can. We're going steady, California first,

then we'll expand. In Europe, we've got a sort of mobile kind of setup, we've got Germany, UK,

but then we're going to be going into into France, Spain, the Netherlands, all countries

are available. No, but I mean, I mean, just like we're going to go there on tour, we're going to go

there with test drive events, we're going to go there in the modular fashion that keeps our cost

down and doesn't, we don't want to bite off too much the vegan chew because we only have TS Pro,

which I've already said is like, it's a premium product that is, you know, attracted to some,

not all, but when we come with our next products and our next products and the catalog grows,

that's when it'll be more massive, massive, massive people. And people will have confidence that

I'm going to cut across, you know, it is and like one model, if it doesn't suit you,

if it doesn't suit my budget, doesn't suit my range, whatever it may be, I go somewhere else.

Exactly. And we've also got to prove that our service model works. We service your bikes at

your house. We don't, we don't have dealerships in the traditional fashion because we don't

want to grow like that. We want to grow with a personal mindset of we have service fans that

come to your house. Very good. That's also convenient. And it's confidence in our product.

Apart from tires and brakes, which can be done at any place, check out YouTube for the videos,

you don't really need any help, especially with our batteries now that have 100,000

charging cycles. You won't need to have that look that because it will last longer than the

bike itself. So, you know, the TS Pro is our first step. When we got the next products,

then people were really, really trust what we're doing. And this year, 26 will be a big year in

the media for us. So, we're going to be giving our TS Pros to anyone and everyone. And that's

when people will realize, okay, this isn't just a prototype that's gone a bit more viral.

No, this is a real product because we have riders in Europe that are every day on the bikes.

Very good. Spencer, thank you so much for your time. Pleasure. Anytime.

There I was, scrolling my phone. Then someone cracked open a

Mountain Dew Baja Cabo Citrus. Next thing I know, I heard a rip.

My friend tried the splits and jeans, but not a drop was spilled.

Have a blast with Mountain Dew Baja Cabo Citrus. A punch of tropical citrus flavor.

Thanks to Marco. I know he was very busy. I went to understand. I was trying to

arrange an interview. It was very difficult to get through to him. He was obviously a

very busy man since he put the announcement out. And he's a derrick. I'm so sorry.

I've got hundreds of mid-media requests, but I'm prioritizing chatting to OEMs and

literally two fellas from an OEM. I won't mention the name of the company,

but we all know the name or understand chatting to them right before I did the podcast. We'll

interview with them. Just absolutely crazy and so lucky to get the opportunity to cover

it here on the podcast. Other bits of news before we wrap up today,

Nissan Leaf production started in Sunderland just before Christmas. I was due to go over

to it, but unfortunately it didn't happen. So I'm really looking forward to it. I still

haven't driven the Leaf. I think I've sat on it. I don't even know if I've sat on it

because it was launched at the show, but I was running around the place as well. So I'm really

looking forward to sitting in and driving the Nissan Leaf. So I heard a really interesting

piece of news coming out of China with regards to the government saying that flush door

handles will be banned from manufacturers. They're just the feedback from crash safety,

emergency services, cold weather, just style. Arrow is great, but to get access into the vehicle,

if there's a crash, etc., is more important. So it looks like they will be starting to be banning

flush door handles. Just before the Christmas, I was there with Thomas from the Irish EV

Owners Association with ESB, their newest supercharging hub in the Frascati Centre.

An interesting location because it is behind a paid barrier. So you have to pay for parking,

which is a private location, it's understandable, and also obviously pay for your charging. So

eight bays, four double-sided ABB units, so same as the one in swords and airside.

Siamite released their 2025 stats and great year for EEs, as you can imagine. It was

up and up on what we've had last year. Really good percentages, 35% on 2024,

and the highest year ever. Obviously, we talked about it over the last number of months with

regards to since August, electric vehicles have outpaced and outsold diesel for the first time,

and that's the trend that's going to be growing. Petrol sales down, everything down,

except for electric plug-in hybrid and electric now make up over 40% of the makeup. So vehicles

with plug sockets on them. So great to see it and looking forward to seeing where we're going to go

in 2026. Hopefully you enjoyed the recent EVs coming this year as well. So it was good to

see what's happening in the world of electric vehicles coming down the line. Busy week here

Lots of content here. Make sure you're following Nivo on all the socials. Make sure you've subscribed

to the newsletter, as I mentioned last week, and obviously the podcast and the YouTube channel.

So coming at your ears and eyes and everywhere in between. ID Polo interior revealed. We're back

to actual touch buttons on our proper buttons on the steering wheel. We have a beautiful

driver display that you can go into retro mode, which looks really cool. Central screen, but

unlike the general ones and gen twos of the MEB platform, we are also getting a touch buttons

underneath that as well. You can still control the temperature via the screen, but we're going

to have a raw physical buttons there as well. Just customer feedback. That's what people want.

And that's the end of this week's podcast. Hopefully you've enjoyed it. It is crazy late

here in Las Vegas. This is going to be edited and then you're going to get it straight away.

Not scheduled. So it'll be around six, 37 o'clock in the morning there for you. And I look forward to

this weekend. We're catching up with the Brussels Motor Show. We're going to be flying over to that,

covering all the launches, global premieres, European premieres. And then next week, I am

flying off with a car that I can't talk about under in Virgo, but I will be able to bring

it to the podcast and the YouTube channel and the website over the coming week. So

thanks so much for listening. A bit of a random one here. I'm literally hanging on without the sleep

but I look forward to chatting to you next week. Thanks very much.

Dear Winter, Toyota can't get enough of you, because Toyota's got 25 vehicles with available

all-wheel drive and four-wheel drive. And that's more than any other auto brand. From the versatile

RAV4 to the Svelte Crown, the sleek Camry all-wheel drive, the Corolla Hybrid all-wheel drive,

the Rugged Tacoma, the Tenacious Tundra, and the spacious Grand Highlander with all-wheel drive

to keep you and yours safe. Hey, you bring the action, we'll bring the traction.

Toyota, let's go places. Based on manufacturer's websites as of 10-20-25.

About this episode

Donut Labs has launched the first production-ready solid-state batteries, debuting in Verge Motorcycles' TS Pro and Ultra models with deliveries starting Q1 2026. These batteries offer rapid zero-to-full charging in five minutes, double the energy density of typical lithium-ion cells, extreme durability, and excellent performance in extreme temperatures. The technology promises longer lifespans, enhanced safety, and sustainability by avoiding rare minerals. Verge Motorcycles is integrating these batteries into premium electric bikes with up to 370 miles range, aiming for a European and US rollout. The episode also touches on EV market growth, new charging hubs, and vehicle design trends.

Nissan Leaf Toyota Camry Toyota Corolla Toyota Crown Toyota Grand Highlander Toyota RAV4 Toyota Tacoma Toyota Tundra

Original notes

Welcome back to the Nevo EV News Podcast. If it's Tuesday it must be Nevo EV News Day. My name is Derek Reilly and on this podcast we chat all about EV. Nevo is Ireland's only dedicated EV platform and we'll be covering where we were this week, what we've been driving and what we've been doing between podcasts. If you haven't already subscribed or followed us wherever you are listening please do so and if you enjoyed the episode, please leave a rating and comment, it really helps us out and it doesn't cost you anything. Let's get stuck in.

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