Donut Lab's Solid-State Battery Claims Meet a Verge Delivery Slip

Verge Motorcycles now expects first customer deliveries to start after the end of March, most likely in April, CEO Tuomo Lehtimäki told Kauppalehti, a Finnish business publication. He said the timing depends on parts availability and official approvals.

He also described a small first wave. The paper reported the first deliveries are planned for a selected group. At Verge’s current scale, Lehtimäki told the paper, orders extend well into 2027. He said the company expects to build about 350 bikes this year.

This delivery slip matters because Donut Lab has been selling a tighter timeline. In a CES announcement dated January 5, Donut Lab said the first Verge Motorcycles equipped with its all-solid-state batteries would be delivered in the first quarter of 2026. That is the same announcement where Donut Lab attached the big battery numbers. It said the cell is designed for 100,000 cycles, with an energy density of 400 Wh per kilogram, and a full charge in five minutes.

It also claimed safety gains from an all-solid-state design, including no flammable liquid electrolyte and no metallic dendrites. None of those lines come with an independent lab name.

Donut Lab said the battery has been rigorously tested across extreme conditions. That is still the company talking about itself.

Verge’s own public materials add a second timeline. Verge’s FAQ says it expects to begin TS Pro sales and deliveries in the United States in Q4 2026. The same FAQ says the company is still in the process of obtaining certifications and sales permissions for the US market.

Verge also says Donut Lab is a subsidiary of Verge Motorcycles. That matters because it makes the battery story an in-house claim.

I cannot reconcile April deliveries with a Q4 2026 US start without guessing. The simplest explanation is that early deliveries happen in Europe while the US waits on paperwork. Verge also says its bikes are fully EU homologated, which would support that split.

Verge says each bike is built to order in Estonia. It also says it has been in production since 2021, with over 250 bikes in production and about 50 delivered. In the same FAQ, Verge also says it has delivered bikes to 15 countries and that there are more than 150 owners.

Those numbers do not line up cleanly from the outside. They could be mixing models, time windows, or definitions.

The most useful piece for readers is the charging math, because it is harder to hide behind marketing.

Verge’s FAQ says the TS Pro can be ordered with either a 20.2 kWh or 33.3 kWh battery. It also lists DC charging power. It says 100 kW for the 20.2 kWh pack and 200 kW for the 33.3 kWh pack.

A 33.3 kWh pack charged in ten minutes would require about 200 kW average power. A full charge in five minutes would require about 400 kW average power on that same pack.

That gap does not prove Donut Lab is wrong. It does tell you the marketing claims and the product spec are not stated in the same language.

Donut Lab’s CES release leans into that ambiguity. It says the battery can be charged to full in five minutes. It also says Verge motorcycles can be charged to full in less than ten minutes.

Maybe five minutes is a lab statement for a smaller cell. Maybe ten minutes is the vehicle statement for the larger pack. Maybe both numbers assume a charging curve that stays flat at high power longer than most lithium-ion packs can.

I do not know because Donut Lab has not published test conditions or a curve.

This is where the delivery delay becomes part of the battery story. If a company says first deliveries are in Q1, then quietly shifts to April, the question is not whether April is catastrophic. The question is what else moved with it.

Lehtimäki told Kauppalehti parts availability matters. That can mean one supplier was late. It can also mean a design change is still propagating through the build. He also cited approvals. Verge’s own FAQ makes clear the US is still waiting on certifications and sales permissions.

You do not ship around that.

The battery claims are the other axis of risk. A five-minute full charge on a motorcycle-sized pack is a car-class charging event. Heat, connector limits, and public charger compatibility matter.

Verge says the bike uses a NACS Combo plug. That is the right direction for US infrastructure. It does not guarantee the chargers a rider finds will sustain 200 kW, let alone more.

Donut Lab is also claiming a 100,000-cycle life. If that number is meant literally, it is outside the normal range of what most buyers assume a battery can do. A claim like that needs definition. Is it full depth cycles? Is it partial cycles? Is it to 80% capacity? Is it at the same charge rate the company is advertising? Is it at normal temperature?

None of that is in the marketing copy.

This is the part where skepticism is warranted and certainty is not.

Donut Lab could have a genuine breakthrough. Verge could be doing what every hardware company does and slipping by weeks as it lines up parts and approvals. Donut Lab could also be stacking best-case metrics from different test setups into one headline.

The easiest way to remove doubt is to show third-party data.

Publish a cell-level test report with a lab name and a date.

Publish the charge curve on the 33.3 kWh pack at the stated 200 kW fast charge power, not a peak number.

Publish cycle-life results with the test protocol spelled out, including depth of discharge and end-of-life definition.

Then deliver the bikes.

We should watch two things next. Whether Verge posts evidence of first customer deliveries in April, not just another schedule, and whether an independent test report appears that pins down the five-minute and 100,000-cycle claims under clearly stated conditions.