Solid-state batteries are supposed to be the next big breakthrough in EVs. In theory, solid-state batteries offer an electric future that’s lighter, faster-charging, safer, and more energy-dense, delivering greater range than the batteries we have now. So, it’s going to be a huge deal when one manufacturer, any manufacturer, offers a production vehicle with a solid-state battery. Verge Motorcycles claims to have achieved that with its new generation TS Pro. The headlining feature? 370 miles of range. But is this a legitimate solid-state battery bike? Let’s take a look!
If you’ve been following EV news for long enough, it feels like we’ve been hearing about solid-state batteries being around the corner as much as we’ve heard about flying cars. Yet, there is not a single vehicle on the market right now with one of those batteries. There has been plenty of progress and projects, from Toyota’s unfortunate-looking battery to Volkswagen’s developments. But nothing that you can buy yet.
Amazingly, some great progress in solid-state batteries has come in the form of electric motorcycles. Back in September, Volkswagen, QuantumScape, PowerCo, and Ducati unveiled a functional prototype electric motorcycle that had a solid-state battery. The headline feature of the Ducati V21L prototype? The fact that it could charge in only 12 minutes, all but eliminating the specter of range anxiety.
But again, no manufacturer has come forward to say they have solid-state tech that’s production-ready – until now. Verge Motorcycles announced it’s launching the “World’s first production vehicle with an all-solid-state battery.” Whoa, that’s big! What’s going on here?
Big Ideas From Finland
I’ll start with a quick reminder about what Verge Motorcycles is, from when I wrote about this company three years ago:
Back in 2018, Teemu Saukkio had an idea. He felt that the motorcycle market was ripe for more attitude with a dose of innovation. Finnish motorcycle manufacturer RMK Vehicle Corporation sprouted up to make Saukkio’s idea a reality. The RMK E2 was designed in Saukkio’s garage and by working at a breakneck pace, the motorcycle made it to EICMA 2019. The company, now called Verge Motorcycles, presented the TS, an electric motorcycle ripped right out of the dreams of many bikers.
The initial draw of the TS was its distinctive hubless rear wheel. Hubless wheels show up all over science fiction, on some quirky bicycles, and often appear on concept vehicles, too. But this wasn’t a concept; Verge went through the effort to engineer an entire hubless rear wheel with an integrated motor. Then, the little company somehow managed to actually build the things and sell them all over the world, including America. Sadly, I haven’t been able to ride one yet, and it’s because Verge hasn’t yet spread its wings outside of California.
Verge has continued to update its motorcycles. Its flagship bike, the Verge TS Ultra, claims 201 horsepower, 885 lb-ft of torque, and a 60 mph sprint in only 2.5 seconds.
Now, some shenanigans are going on with that torque figure. Electric motorcycles don’t get the same torque ratings as gas bikes do. An ICE motorcycle’s torque is measured at the engine’s crank, while electric motorcycles measure torque at the wheel. The huge difference comes from gear reduction, which multiplies the torque from the source engine or electric motor. If you measured a gas bike’s torque at the rear wheel, you’d come up with a similarly ridiculous-sounding number.
For example, a middleweight like the Yamaha MT-07 makes 48 lb-ft of torque at the crank, or 682 lb-ft of torque at the rear wheel. So a Verge does have a lot of torque, but not nearly as much as the funny numbers make you think.
Either way, Verge builds some insane machines. Last year, a Verge TS Pro, a lower model that makes a mere 137 horsepower, managed to ride 193 miles at largely slower speeds on a single charge. Yet, none of what Verge has done over the past few years, including the crazy hubless wheel, holds a candle to the company’s latest wild claim. Saying you built the world’s first production vehicle with a solid-state battery is no joke.
Verge’s Solid-State Battery
Verge says this new development comes thanks to a collaboration between it and Donut Lab. Donut Lab was announced last year by the folks who built Verge, and it exists as a sort of skunkworks. The hubless wheel motor that powers the Verge motorcycles now falls under the Donut Lab umbrella as the Donut Motor. The company is also working on a rigging robot and a skateboard platform for electric cars. But Donut’s greatest achievement, outside of the hubless motor, anyway, is claimed to be what it calls the Donut Battery. Donut Lab takes a big swing right on its website by saying “World’s First All-Solid-State Battery. Production Ready Today.”
Here’s the company’s press copy:
Known for the groundbreaking hubless in-wheel motor, technology company and electric motorcycle manufacturer Verge Motorcycles is once again pushing the boundaries of what motorcycling can be. The company has become the first in the world to introduce solid-state battery technology into production motorcycles—marking a significant milestone not only for two-wheeled transport, but for electric vehicles more broadly. The unprecedented battery technology, developed and tested together with technology company Donut Lab, enables a significantly fast charging time and nearly doubles the range on a single charge.
Solid-state batteries have been a prominent topic in discussions related to the automotive industry in recent years. They are made from a solid electrolyte, which makes them significantly safer and more efficient than lithium-ion batteries made from liquid or gel electrolytes. Many major vehicle manufacturers have been testing solid-state technology in their own vehicles, and wider adoption in production vehicles is expected going into the next decade. Verge is one step ahead, as the company is set to deliver the first motorcycles equipped with solid-state batteries to its customers in the coming months.
[…]
The new battery pack further revolutionizes the riding experience by enabling ultra-fast charging: an additional 186 miles of range in just ten minutes. Current battery technologies typically support only thousands of charging cycles, whereas Verge’s solid-state battery lasts for the entire lifetime of the motorcycle. The upgraded battery pack does not affect the motorcycle’s price, making it a highly cost-effective option for customers as well. In addition, Verge’s customers can choose an extended-range battery pack at the time of purchase, which increases the range from 217 miles up to 370 miles on a single charge — which is almost double the additional range.
Okay, sure, but none of the press copy explains how Verge beat everyone else to the punch at making a solid-state battery. How did this little startup company beat titans like Honda and Toyota? For that, Donut Lab published a video:
In it, Donut Lab co-founder and CEO Marko Lehtimäki doesn’t hold back. He claims that other companies have failed to launch a solid-state battery either because they couldn’t get their batteries to charge fast enough, they couldn’t stop the battery from degrading too quickly, they couldn’t build enough solid-state batteries, or they haven’t figured out how to make affordable solid-state batteries.
Lehtimäki claims his team has made a battery that can charge in only five minutes, will last more than 100,000 cycles with almost no degradation, is cheaper to make than lithium-ion batteries, delivers 400 Wh/kg, and is made out of 100 percent green materials. Simply put, Verge and Donut Lab claimed to have built the holy grail of batteries.
The Bike
This holy grail is going into the next-generation Verge TS Pro, the base model of the Verge TS lineup, and the aforementioned TS Ultra. The claims here are frankly silly. The solid-state Verge TS Pro is said to have a Donut Motor making 737 lb-ft of torque, a 3.5-second acceleration time to 60 mph, and insane range.
The standard solid-state battery is said to be 20.2 kWh and good for 217 miles of range. Upgrade to the 33.3 kWh pack, and range jumps to an astonishing 370 miles of “real-world” range. These batteries can charge in “under 10 minutes” when hooked up to a 200 kW charger through a NACS connector.
It’s noted that these range figures are mostly for urban riding. But even if you slice the range figure in half to account for riding on a highway, that’s not bad at all! Well, assuming the range claim is anywhere close to accurate, anyway.
Donut Lab claims that this battery is better than any other in that it retains 99 percent capacity in minus 30 Celsius and also when it’s above 100 Celsius, unlike lithium chemistry. Donut Lab also says you can run the battery to zero or charge it to 100 percent as many times as you want without hurting it. As for lifespan, Donut Lab says it’ll last the entire life of the vehicle, making the threat of having to replace a worn battery a thing of the past. The company then talks about these cells not having thermal runaway problems, weighing less than lithium batteries, and, somehow, even costing less to make than lithium batteries.
As if all that wasn’t unbelievable enough, Donut Lab then claims, “In fact, we found ourselves designing a slower charging speed so riders can plug in and actually have time to drink a latte and enjoy it instead of downing an espresso and rushing back to their bike.” Weirdly, Verge also says that its version of the Donut Battery will last for 10,000 cycles rather than 100,000.
Verge says that you get all of this for the starting price of $29,900. That gets you a Verge TS Pro with the standard battery. If you want the one that supposedly has 370 miles of range, that’s $5,000 more. For further context, the lithium version of the Verge TS Pro also had a starting price of $29,900.
Someone Has Some Explaining To Do
Now, I’m just going to ignore the fact that super expensive electric motorcycles usually struggle to sell. Just ask LiveWire how that has worked out. I just want to focus on the battery. I watched all of Donut Lab’s video, and at no point does anyone explain how they achieved the incredible performance the technology is claimed to provide. Donut Lab has provided exactly zero engineering or technical details about this battery. The video doesn’t show any real-world testing with the new battery, either.
How did this tiny startup company with only a handful of employees beat industry giants with decades of battery research and hundreds of engineers? It sounds impossible, and last time I checked, it’s not April first yet.
I’m not the only one who is skeptical. The Verge also wanted to know what’s going on and chatted with Lehtimäki. Apparently, Lehtimäki is not willing to comment on anything technical until the company’s new patent filings clear. But he does say that the rumor that Donut Lab is just rebranding a supercapacitor from another Finnish startup, Nordic Nano, is false.
Until the patents go live, Lehtimäki just says, from the Verge: “The party that has the capability and then iterates faster is the one that obviously makes the innovation,” Lehtimäki says. “I’ve always said that 20 engineers beat 2,000 engineers.”
Lehtimäki claims that his company will explain the technical details in the coming months. For now, you’ll just have to take Donut Lab’s word that its team somehow invented the holy grail of batteries. Apparently, the company is hoping to use this battery for darn near everything that would normally be powered by an internal combustion engine, and the company also hopes to get the attention of the American auto industry. Donut Lab also claims that the battery is in production right now for deliveries beginning this quarter.
As always, I don’t recommend spending oodles of cash on something until you know that it works. At the very least, I can confirm that Verge does make real motorcycles. I’ve seen them with my own eyes. So if you want a Verge, those do exist.
As for the solid-state battery thing, I’ll be watching to see what comes of this. Did Donut Lab just create the holy grail of electric power? I suppose we’re going to find out. I think I’m refraining from getting excited until one of these bikes is on the road and reviewers are riding them.
Top graphic image: Verge Motorcycles
Solid State Batteries are a thing now! Also, FREE BEER TOMORROW!!!!
So, say it’s a 5 minute recharge time, and the 370 mile range is at urban speeds, so average of 30mph?
To test the charge/discharge cycle would take 12.4 hours.
So to prove durability over 10,000 cycles is 14.17 years of 24 hour testing with your production spec design. That’s the equivalent of 3.7 million miles, which seems like a wildly over ambitious target. It’s also the same as charging it up once every day for 27 years
If it’s 100,000 cycles then they’d have started testing in the late 1800’s.
However if you accelerate the discharge time to 5 minutes then it’s just a couple of years of 24 hour testing to validate your production spec design. So they must have finished developing this battery 2 years ago, to hit the 100,000 cycle target in a production design. That seems more likely, but it’s such a huge number of charge cycles: that’s a charge every day for 274 years.
These numbers make no sense to some used to validating ICE powertrains for OEMs.
“In fact, we found ourselves designing a slower charging speed so riders can plug in and actually have time to drink a latte and enjoy it instead of downing an espresso and rushing back to their bike.”
This reminds me of the salesman at Circuit City showing us a Packard Bell in the early ’90s, and pitching the longer boot time of Windows 3.0 as an advantage over Macintosh,because you could go refill your coffee
I thought you were going to talk about the TURBO button–for those times you want to make your computer slow. I guess that’s the equivalent of this charging “feature.”
No, I’m pretty sure this guy didn’t know what that did
(I’ll go ahead and “um actually” myself to save someone else the trouble. Yeah, now I know the point of the turbo button was to allow for older games that were designed for slower processors and were unusable otherwise. But I still don’t think many people had any idea what it was for at the time. I used it to make the cards go slower when I beat Solitaire.)
It was one of the most confusingly named features ever, at least since Chrysler chose to call their cruise control “Auto-Pilot” back in the 1950s
I guess we’ll find out when Marko Lehtimäki posts his “Why I Left Donut” video in a few months. 😉
“We could have it charge in like 12 seconds but intentionally slowed it down so you could have a coffee” is the absolute funniest BS out of this large pile of BS. Giving strong “my girlfriend is so real, she just lives in Canada” vibes!
Maybe I’m jaded by the $50 12V Lithium batteries on Amazon that have just a small 12V ups battery inside and some cement, but I’m a need some more deets, and even if they won’t release technical details, have some journalists take the thing on a supervised ride for 300 miles and then charge and ride back. If they can make those claims, they should have a testing unit that can back some of them up.
I can see why people are deeply skeptical, however I don’t get how it’s in this company’s interest to BS this when they know they’re gonna get called out on it in short time. The proper way to do it is say you’ve had great success with prototypes and anticipate bringing the product to market by mid Q3 2028, not to say you’re already producing it.
I know that’s essentially the business model for startups these days, but this seems to be a real company with a history of making real products. What’s in it for them to intentionally trash their reputation?
My take: SSBs are about at production sample stage, so Donut lab can probably deliver enough good cells for the handful of bikes Verge would sell.
I’m guessing we’re a couple years from the kind of production quantity and quality that an automaker would need. But when we get there it’s gonna be friggin’ awesome.
So with a bigger, heavier battery the efficiency goes up 3 1/2% from 10.7 to 11.1
mi / kWh? Is that a thing that makes sense?
The bigger battery would have less voltage sag and so a more efficient drivetrain.
However it is hard to believe a 50% increase in battery size and presumably mass wouldn’t negate that efficiency increase.
Mass doesn’t have as much effect on EV efficiency as people think, see Lucid Air Grand Touring, the thing weighs over 5,000 pounds but can still go 500 miles on a charge.
Wording which leaves wide open the possibility that they are simply using a slightly adapted version of their supercapacitor, assuming they are also misusing the word “battery.”
Cold fusion inside every battery! Flying cars in 2028. We promise
Gotta reach those numbers. I would definitely range extend it with a single stroke INNengine, now THAT would be real cool. I’ve seen the e-REX running in a live demo. https://innengine.com/ Neat story, ongoing.
Btw, aren’t regular alkaline batteries solid state?
If by “regular alkaline batteries” you are referring to something like a AA (double A) battery then no, they are not solid state.
They are sealed cells with a liquid electrolyte, unlike typical car lead-acid batteries. This is part of the reason they are not rechargeable. Gas is produced when charging and it has no where to vent.
“But wait! There’s more! There’s a special setting on the battery that you can select before charging so that within 15 minutes of plugging it in, your garage door bulges out until it blows apart in a blinding pink light and Kelly LeBrock emerges. Unfortunately, Steven Seagal follows right behind, kicking himself around in an office swivel chair and trying to jazz hand slap you into submission, but we promise to have those bugs worked out by production. Until then, just throw him a donut—the pastry, not our battery—and push him over with a stick while he’s distracted. Like a turtle, he can’t turn back over without assistance.”
“Unfortunately, Steven Seagal follows right behind”
For 1980’s Kelly LeBrock? Totally worth it!
(And as far as unwanted figures emerging out of 1980’s ether I’ll take fake Navy Seal Steven Segal over Pinhead and the Cenobites)
COTD
I was immediately skeptical when I couldn’t find any articles other than the regurgitated press release, and nothing from what I would consider to be a real science publication. Also nothing about what their actual chemistry is, nothing in any of the journals, and no evidence that they have any kind of large-scale production facility. Only that they have “designs” and “platforms” that they would license. Super sketchy. I’d like to believe it, but I think it’s hype and nonsense. Also, that “we could charge in 5 minutes, but we’re not going to let you do that because coffee” sounds like total BS. Why wouldn’t you enable the fastest charging that the system can safely and reliably do? Doesn’t pass the sniff test.
Oh the coffee slowdown thing was absolutely hilarious. It’s like saying “we think everyone but us is a fool.”
Yeah I was trying to make that make sense. It’s not like you must be on your way as soon as its done. Next year they’ll have a new version that will allow you time to have a full meal!
Idle fees.
Nah, if you could get a charge in less than 5 min you wouldn’t leave until it was finished, just like when you stop for gas.
That is so stupidly obvious. Of course you would. And then you could drive 2 minutes to stop for food at some place more pleasant than the back of a Walmart parking lot.
Also, if the 5 min time is legit (big if), you’d probably spend more time trying to get the charger to turn on than actually charging. Wild…
Maybe. OTOH the number of people I see flip down the lever on the pump handle and walk away is more than zero.
I’ve slowed the charge rate and/or upped the charge limit on my EV to not get hit with idle fees before. Those kick in after about 5 minutes of being hooked up but not charging. EV chargers are typically a short walk to the convenience store where the coffee and bathrooms are. With a small battery and fast charge rate, I’ll rate this one as “plausible, needs more research”.
Ok that’s fair–forgot about those. I’m limited to 50kw charging so idle fees aren’t really an issue for me.
Idle fees kind of suck in this situation. I’ve yet to ride an electric bike, but every time I see videos of ppl charging them, they seem to park them anywhere but in the middle of a spot. The fees are supposed to keep ppl from blocking access but that’s unlikely to be an issue on a bike. Just be off to the side and leave a note that says “feel free to unplug once finished.”
When a manufacturer says that some part of the vehicle lasts for the “lifetime of the vehicle”, they never say what that lifetime is. For all we know, the lifetime of this bike is 5 minutes
Its however long the rear tire will last because you won’t find a shop that can put new tires on it.
lasts the life of the bike! never worry about changing a tire again! so many benefits to this setup.
Lifetime is the maximum length of any available manufacturer provided or manufacturer-endorsed warranties
I’m on the Telo Discord and people will not stop posting the Donut Labs stuff. So the overhyped, probably impossible, certainly unbelievable hype works to get people talking. I would love for the battery to work half as well as the hype does, but I no longer get excited about sudden breakthroughs in technology or science until they’ve been independently verified. Most fail, of course.
Zero chance it hits its claimed range.
Over hyped marketing claims might work in the tech world, but this company will quickly find out that the automotive world does not take kindly to this kind of bullshit.
All they had to do was claim something more reasonable. Say 200 miles and it would have the longest range of nearly any real electric motorcycle. Nope. They needed to turn the marketing nonsense up to 11 and pretend that 370 miles in real world use is attainable.
Consumers are burnt out from marketing BS so if this bike doesn’t hit its numbers, I truly hope this company crashes and burns. I am just so goddamn sick of corporate BS.
“Over hyped marketing claims might work in the tech world, but this company will quickly find out that the automotive world does not take kindly to this kind of bullshit”
– Elon Musk enters the chat
It is not impossible for a small company to invent something almost magical with a limited team and budget.
It is just really hard to.
While I agree that corporate bureaucracy tend to undermine innovation, this is the kind of situation where a healthy budget and a bigger team certainly will be benefical.
Solid state bateries involves a lot of variables that will require a lot of knowledge involved, from chemistry to electrical engineering, from materials science to production engineering and so on.
Even accountants could give a little help. So..
Again, not impossible, just hard. Extremelly.
And usually, if something sounds to good to be true, it is because it is not true.
I’m skeptical as well. This YouTuber did as deep of a dive as he could without actually having one of these solid state batteries to test or take apart. Even if these turn out to be some kind of a capacitor/battery hybrid and they live up to half the claims, it’s a major step forward in battery tech.
I don’t think charging speed (or lack thereof) is the reason that people aren’t buying $30k electric motorcycles.
maybe not charging speed, but the sub-100 mile range sure isn’t helping. But even if they could match the range, you could get an equivalent gasser for half that. A 10th if you go used.
For me anything from a new company is gonna be a hard pass. Motorcycle geometry is hard, and kinda important. Established brands have spent decades dialing it all in. Could a startup get it right? Maybe? Maybe even probably? But given the stakes involved, I’m gonna let some other folks beta test it for a few years before I put my butt on it.
The way this Lehtimäki guy talks reminds me of John Hammond (more so the book version but a bit of the movie)
I really don’t think you’re giving them their due credit, their engineers have just done things which nobody’s ever done before
I hope they are right and they have figured it out, I really, truly do.
I do however, have doubts. Deeply cynical doubts.
Turns out it’s actually just 1,000 gerbils in a trench coat
What’s the conversion of gerbil feed to kWh? Given charging rates that might not be a bad deal…
I want to buy that battery, but can’t find anyone selling it. Supposedly, at ~400 Wh/kg, I could definitely use that for my velomobile build. I’d be more than happy to test it in real world conditions.
As to that motorcycle, hubless motor/wheel designs are a terrible idea for a large list of reasons and I hope this fad dies a quick death.
What kind of reasons? I can guess the complexity and potential for catastrophic failure, but is there anything inherently wrong with the concept if someone could make it reliable? Also, is there any advantage other than being able to stick your hand through it?
There are a few advantages: more space for the battery since the motor isn’t in the frame. You don’t have to design for a whole chain/belt drive.
But negatives are definitely manufacturing cost, drag from the numerous internal bearings required to rigidly support the weight and power, and having all that weight in the wheel makes it harder to control with suspension. Much more mass trying to heave up and down.
Not just that, but consider trying to change a tire and/or tube on this and the tools/equipment/skillset needed…
Well, they do have a Youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPPrrcd2dQ4) showing the process. You unbolt carbon fiber outer rim with tire, and then it appears a normal tire machine can handle it. I’d just take it someplace trustworthy enough to handle carbon fiber rims, can’t be cheap to replace.
It’s a relief to see they actually considered serviceability in the design. I’ve seen other hubless designs that weren’t nearly as straightforward or DIY-friendly.
Dang. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt there weren’t any shenanigans during the jump cut right before they take off the wheel.
But this proves my point from earlier: this is clearly a real company that puts effort into creating real products. It’s not some dumb startup promising to create hoverboards. I understand why the math doesn’t really math with their claims, but cannot understand why they would make such an insane promise on such a short timeline if they weren’t able to deliver. I’m stumped. Guess we’ll all find out soon.
Being able to stick your head through it.
Sold.
But you haven’t yet heard what else you can stick through it!
Manufacturers may try to do this (remember the Hummer and its 16,000 lb-ft at the wheels or whatever), but there is zero reason you guys or any other outlet need to indulge them in it.
I decided to reword that. The company provides no other number for torque, so I used that number and explained why it looks stupid. Also, I just added what the torque of a Yamaha MT-07 is at the wheel, just for illustration.
Great edit, reads better now!
If the motor is in the wheel, do we know there is any torque multiplication? Are there planetary gears in the hub motor? I’m just wondering because a 200hp electric motor at 1750 rpm does produce something like 600lbf of torque according to a quick google search. The 800 number could be real. There are a lot of factors that go into calculating electric motor torque, so take my Google numbers with a grain of salt.
Spot on, if the motor is directly driving the wheel without gearing, it does hit the high torque numbers. It would be some oddly packaged gearing if it is in there. I’m guessing that is the benefit of having the large diameter hub motor, to move the electro magnetic force to a larger radius to get the high levels of torque and not need any gearing. I’m not sure if it would outweigh the downsides of higher rotational inertia and such in a motorcycle though.