0:011 second If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck.
0:1212 seconds Occam's razor is a problem-solving principle that recommends searching for explanations
0:1818 seconds constructed with the smallest possible set of elements. Meaning also that if you have
0:2424 seconds a world changing battery with a revolutionary features, but you cannot show it to anybody, you most likely do not have a battery. You have a story of a battery.
0:3838 seconds A battery does two things. It stores energy and releases it. That's it. The question is always
0:4747 seconds how much energy and on what terms and features: weight, size, price, lifespan, charging speed,
0:5555 seconds and energy density. These features have a tradeoff. If you improve something,
1:021 minute, 2 seconds you have to give up on something. Donut Lab came out with a super battery that they told had improved everything without the need to give up on anything.
1:171 minute, 17 seconds This would be like Superman participating the Olympics of mere mortals. First he would
1:231 minute, 23 seconds run a marathon at the average speed of a 100 meter sprinter. Then he would high jump 10 meters
1:301 minute, 30 seconds and throw the javelin straight out of the stadium. Astonishing. Revolutionary. The
1:371 minute, 37 seconds only problem is Superman does not exist. And neither does the super battery.
1:461 minute, 46 seconds Energy density of 400 Watt hours per kilogram, 100,000 charge cycles, mass production ready,
1:541 minute, 54 seconds and the first customer deliveries starting immediately. Almost 5 months have now passed
2:012 minutes, 1 seconds since CES Las Vegas January, and these main claims that Donut Lab made there have not been
2:082 minutes, 8 seconds proved or tested. Why? Because according to the known laws of physics, this cannot happen.
2:182 minutes, 18 seconds 400 Watt hours per kilogram and 100,000 charge cycles cannot exist in the same battery.
2:292 minutes, 29 seconds So why did I believe they could? Because I am not a battery expert. I'm a business and sales
2:372 minutes, 37 seconds expert. I believe revolutionary innovations can happen. I believed what I was told. I believed
2:462 minutes, 46 seconds when Donut Lab told me they had internally tested the battery and were confident enough to make a
2:522 minutes, 52 seconds big launch in Las Vegas. I believed when Donut Lab told me, investors and customers that the
3:013 minutes, 1 second due diligence made by one of the biggest and most reputable law firms in Finland included
3:073 minutes, 7 seconds also technical due diligence showing that everything works perfectly. Naive, maybe.
3:203 minutes, 20 seconds But in business world you cannot be expert on everything.
3:263 minutes, 26 seconds Sometimes you have to trust other people. Unfortunately, in this case, I trusted the wrong people.
3:373 minutes, 37 seconds And as soon as I saw the facts do not match with the story, I started to do something.
3:483 minutes, 48 seconds When someone makes a claim like Donut Lab did in CES last January,
3:543 minutes, 54 seconds there's one simple request. Show me. Not a presentation, not a road map,
4:044 minutes, 4 seconds not a vision, but a test result, an independent verification,
4:124 minutes, 12 seconds the kind that any serious scientific claim requires, and then show me the product itself.
4:244 minutes, 24 seconds What happened instead was a test series called "ibonutbelieve", published weekly, one result at a time.
4:334 minutes, 33 seconds Charging speed, temperature stability, safety demonstration. Each one carefully
4:424 minutes, 42 seconds designed to show something and carefully designed to avoid showing something else.
4:504 minutes, 50 seconds The VTT test series was designed in a clever and tendacious way. They did not order the
4:584 minutes, 58 seconds test series as a whole from VTT because then all the test results would have been had to present
5:055 minutes, 5 seconds together. Instead, they ordered a separate test for each feature. That way, they could cherry-pick
5:135 minutes, 13 seconds and present only the results that seemed most attractive. Nine episodes so far. None of them
5:235 minutes, 23 seconds showing the most important features. None of them showing the energy density or the charge cycles.
5:375 minutes, 37 seconds The most important claims, the numbers that justified everything, that attracted investors,
5:445 minutes, 44 seconds that made the room go quiet at CES, were never tested, or if they were tested,
5:515 minutes, 51 seconds the results were never shown. The test series was not designed to prove the super battery
5:585 minutes, 58 seconds worked as promised. It was designed to prove that some battery existed.
6:056 minutes, 5 seconds And you do not have to be a battery expert to know that those are two very different things.
6:156 minutes, 15 seconds So what what's the news here? Aren't startups always exaggerating, overpromising,
6:246 minutes, 24 seconds and leaning forward? Well, there's another set of numbers in this story. Not battery numbers,
6:336 minutes, 33 seconds but financial numbers. Before the CES launch in December 2025,
6:436 minutes, 43 seconds Donut Lab was raising money at a valuation of €250 million, telling investors this was
6:516 minutes, 51 seconds the last and unique chance to get in at this special price. That soon the valuation would
6:596 minutes, 59 seconds skyrocket as the super battery was about to launch. After the launch in February 2026,
7:097 minutes, 9 seconds they were raising money at a valuation of €1.25 billion Fivefold valuation in a matter of weeks.
7:267 minutes, 26 seconds What changed? Nothing was delivered. Nothing was independently verified. No customer had
7:357 minutes, 35 seconds received a product. No energy density or charge cycle test had been published. The
7:427 minutes, 42 seconds contents of the battery had not been revealed. What changed was the story.
7:537 minutes, 53 seconds The "idonutbelieve" test series wasn't meant to be just a PR campaign. It was
7:597 minutes, 59 seconds designed to be a fundraising tool. Each weekly episode carefully selecting what
8:068 minutes, 6 seconds to show and what not to show. Was building a case for investors creating the impression of
8:138 minutes, 13 seconds rigorous verification while the most critical questions remained unanswered. A valuation
8:208 minutes, 20 seconds doesn't grow five-fold because a battery exists. It grows five-fold because enough people believe it exists.
8:308 minutes, 30 seconds Belief is worth a lots of money. As long as nobody asks the wrong questions.
8:438 minutes, 43 seconds Since the first episode of solid state of truth, a friendly follower leaked
8:488 minutes, 48 seconds me all of the donut lab and verge investor communication. Here are some highlights of
8:548 minutes, 54 seconds that. The battery that defies physics. The investor letter describes a battery that
9:039 minutes, 3 seconds charges from zero to 100 in minutes, never loses capacity, cannot explode,
9:109 minutes, 10 seconds and costs a fraction of anything currently on the market. The letter then adds almost
9:179 minutes, 17 seconds as a confession: "It sounds too good to be true" The certifying authority that validated these
9:279 minutes, 27 seconds figures is never named. The company that developed the technology is never named.
9:389 minutes, 38 seconds The investment Don Lab made to access this world changing technology, €300,000.
9:499 minutes, 49 seconds For context, Toyota has invested over $15 billion dollar in solid state battery development,
9:569 minutes, 56 seconds and they still don't have a commercial product. Quantum Space has raised over $2 billion backed
10:0410 minutes, 4 seconds by Volkswagen, BMW, and Bill Gates, and they are still in pilot production. $300,000.
10:1910 minutes, 19 seconds A pipeline is not a sale. Six weeks after CES, Donut Lab reported a €1.2 billion
10:2910 minutes, 29 seconds sales pipeline to its shareholders. What it did not explain is that the pipeline
10:3510 minutes, 35 seconds is a list of conversations, not contracts, not letters of intent, not purchase orders. The 1.2
10:4410 minutes, 44 seconds 2 billion number was the one sent to the shareholders. Then they also reported of a
10:5110 minutes, 51 seconds 500 million weight pipeline, but that figure was buried in the same paragraph. Anyhow,
10:5910 minutes, 59 seconds both of these figures are approximately as accurate as ones that could come out if a blind drunk monkey would choose a number by throwing darts.
11:1311 minutes, 13 seconds One of the investor letters claims the Verge TS Pro is the world's first solid state battery
11:2011 minutes, 20 seconds vehicle designed for serial production. No independent verification, no name testing
11:2611 minutes, 26 seconds authority. The letter was distributed to over a thousand shareholders without the legally required
11:3411 minutes, 34 seconds investor prospectus while actively soliciting new investment. and the Verge motorcycles themselves.
11:4211 minutes, 42 seconds All deliveries have been pushed to Q4 2026. The world's first is not yet in anyone's hands.
11:5611 minutes, 56 seconds Next week, I'm going to tell you what happens when you keep on asking the wrong questions.
12:0412 minutes, 4 seconds Every decision has its consequences. And next week you will know what they were in this case.
12:1612 minutes, 16 seconds We're talking about very serious things here. But here's one thing
12:2112 minutes, 21 seconds to lighten the mood because as my late grandmother used to say: "Ilo silimään, vaikka syän märkänis"
12:3012 minutes, 30 seconds that was Finnish. Translates poorly. But basically the idea behind that is
12:3712 minutes, 37 seconds Don't worry be happy. So we have opened our own merchandise store. The Solid State of Truth
12:4812 minutes, 48 seconds has invented something so peculiar and interesting that we just have to share
12:5512 minutes, 55 seconds with you. So please check it out. But please remember: BATTERY IS NOT INCLUDED.
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