Battery chemistry patents are notoriously easy to “design around” to create variations. Who is going to want to risk working with a company that has a track record of being notoriously dodgy, especially when there’s a couple of dozen well established major players that have solid reputations and scale.

Yes, if they supplied batteries to independent testers, that would quickly prove their technically claims are true or false.

But the hole they’ve dug isn’t just about technical claims. As I said, they’ve relied on dodgy marketing tactics which has caused industry damage, and that wouldn’t just disappear. They’d still have huge business reputation issues regarding things like trust for starters. Businesses are far more than just their technology. Plenty of great tech has failed due to other factors and execution.

Yep, that’s a massive argument against Donut. But the question I haven’t seen the battery experts address is whether the expansion pattern is unique to the chemistry they believe it is. Are there other chemistries that could produce the same effect? The investigators clearly don’t think so, but Donut also isn’t claiming to be using previously seen tech.

Either way, it’s not looking good for Donut. The burden of proof is, and always has been, on them, and they have a looooong climb out of the hole they’ve dug.

Regardless, Ziroth and others make a good point that Donut’s marketing games are damaging to the industry. Other legitimate players seeking investment will be tarnished by Donut’s antics. So even if their tech turned out to be legit, they’re still going to be a bad actor.

Reading the article, the investigation isn’t a case of independent labs getting hold of the battery and definitively disproving Donut’s claims. It’s battery experts and researchers looking at the data Donut has released and saying, “these claims are extraordinary and the evidence doesn’t yet convince us. Here’s what we think the battery actually is.” That’s a very reasonable scientific position, especially when you’re talking about 400 Wh/kg, 5-minute charging, and 100,000 cycles all at once.

But without independently tested samples, there are still a lot of unknowns and inferences involved. That’s not to say the skeptics are wrong, but it’s still arguably a case of skeptics being skeptical… reasonably so, but based on analysis of the available evidence rather than direct examination of the battery itself.

“So much winning!”

During the first Trump administration, Soybean farmers were hit hard by the tariff war with China, especially in the mid-west. The administration had to bail out the industry with tens of billions of dollars in handouts. Many farmers went under, and there was a clear rise in farmer suicides.

So what did these farmers do?.. yep, they voted for Trump again for a second term [sigh]

And after seeing how devastating tarrifs were on farmers and industries, and the deaths it caused the first time around, surely Trump learned a valuable lesson and vowed not to use tarrifs so recklessly in his second term…