Um... Did nobody see the Verge motorbike which is now shipping as standard with this battery? And the three companies which are also deploying the new battery tech? If this is a scam, it's definitely a very very sophisticated one.
The Verge was discussed at least 2 times, most recently yesterday, on the Wheel Bearings podcast (which I enjoy for the simple motorhead banter). https://overcast.fm/+AA7tJqdxHkE
Robbie from SAE International, who is of the hosts, and an avid motorcyclist, is impressed with the bike and the promise of SSBs. I only ride bicycles, can’t comment on the bike itself, but thought to share and widen their audience. It was kind of a mini shallow yet “deep dive”. It doesn’t seem to be mentioned on their own site for this episode, but the chapter in Overcast is the last one, linking to https://sustainablecareers.sae.org/article/donut-lab-verge-s...
"Now shipping?" I do not see evidence of that. I am not even convinced the one you can test ride has this battery tech. They announced this same bike at least a year ago with regular LIon batteries.
I don't know about a scam, but the EV skateboard they're using has been available for other companies to use for a few years, while the other two companies share the same leadership as Donut/Verge and appear to be founded within the last few months. The battery may be great, but the multiple company launch seems a bit of a marketing gimmick.
not too sure of your point. The skateboard has been available with conventional lithium ion batteries. What they're saying here is they've just upgraded it to the new solid state ones. Fairly logical.And I'm totally mystified by the shared leadership comment. What shared leadership?
According to press releases, the CEO of Donut/Verge founded Cova and ESOX in October/November. They're newly formed companies that haven't done anything yet, so I don't really think it would require much sophistication to say that three companies have already adopted this technology. Again, this doesn't say anything about the "realness" of the battery technology, I just wouldn't rely on the idea that multiple companies adopting it means that the technology is real, since right now it's tending to look more like businessmen throwing out multiple shell startups in different industries to lend weight to the announcement.
Hmm..not really. Cova Power is a joint venture between Donut Labs and Ahola which is a huge Finnish freight company formed in 1955 - which makes sense since they are both based in Finland. The involvement of the University of Oulu suggests that this is clearly a Finnish project. I wouldn't be surprised to find some Nokia money in there as well. ESOX is just the military product arm of Donut Labs, which I guess has connections with the Finnish military.
One thing that most people have missed is that in the Verge small print they discuss the range of the motorbike as being 217 miles for around town driving, which plummets to 127 at 56 mph per hour on the highway. That seems quite a big drop to me, but there again I'm not a battery expert.
Not necessarily a scam, but it smells like more hype that reality. For example, the web page boasts "2000+ test rides complete", which basically says nothing.
I hope this battery tech and the statements on the web page are true (370-mile range from an electric motorcycle!), but I'm not writing any checks just yet.
I thought it was widely believed that Rubio was running US foreign policy in zones that aren't Trump's personal interests, like Ukraine. I feel like Rubio and Gabbard could indeed have convinced Trump and Hegseth to do this, and not have much in the way of a follow-up plan. It worked for Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan!
I'm sorry but I'm not paying $199 'early access fee' for something with zero track record, zero authority or credibility and zero guarantee that it'll still be around in 6 months time. That's just plain silly. :)
The core CLI is fully open source (MIT) and usable without paying anything — the $199 Early Access is optional and only for convenience (prebuilt binaries, installer, updates, early plugins).
There’s no lock-in or dependency on a hosted service; if the project disappeared tomorrow, the OSS core would still work as long as Cloudflare does.
I’m intentionally keeping EA small and low-pressure rather than positioning it as a subscription or promise of longevity.
Thanks, I've just noticed the MIT license which is nice. No Windows implementation though, which rules me out anyway. Sorry, I didn't notice that at first. Looks like an interesting project.
Amazing idea. I did something vaguely similar (as in not at all), when I rescued an abandonware WordPress theme on my blog and brought it back to life to work with the latest PHP. It's very satisfying work. :)
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