A few years ago, Finnish-Estonian startup Verge released a wild bike with a rear wheel so hollow you could stick your foot straight through it. Now, moto builders have realized that the powerful ring-shaped hub motor inside a hollow wheel has untapped potential beyond just a bike. The spin-off company, Donut Lab, pursues new applications across a modular ecosystem of motors and supporting electrical components. Our accomplishments to date are even more exotic than the Verge TS, from stacked rotor VTOLs to multi-terrain singletrack electronic machines.
The number of people who buy electric bikes is limited. But what about cars, semis, boats, aircraft, terrestrial and extraterrestrial off-roaders, and machines of war? Well, this one shot will expand your customer base by several orders of magnitude.
Donut Lab is a new Verge spin-off company tasked with putting eye-catching hollow motors into all kinds of vehicles and more. The institute officially announced its existence in late November with plans to sell not just motors but entire modular architectures of electric powertrain components.
donut lab
In fact, the global electric transportation market targeted by Donut Lab represents a $550 billion change, on the verge of ballooning to more than $4 trillion within 10 years, if the company’s research is to be believed. This is a hearty pie, and even just a bite of the dough would make for a pretty fancy second home for a donut executive.
What Donut is adding to that market is an extensive library of scalable electric drive components designed to work seamlessly with each other while offering plug-and-play functionality for standalone use.
“While developing[the Verge TS motorcycle]we learned how difficult and time-consuming it is to manufacture electric vehicles using traditional mechanisms,” said Marko Lehtimäki, CEO of Donut Lab. he said in an announcement last month. “The reason is that vehicles are built with components from different equipment manufacturers and are not designed to work together. Integration work always takes most of the time. If we can solve this, We decided to change the whole system.”Automotive industry. ”
donut lab
In addition to battery modules, computers, and vehicle control hardware, the company’s catalog includes the seed of inspiration for the whole shebang, that crazy-looking donut motor. They are built from the ground up to work together seamlessly, helping EV developers avoid the kind of integration issues that slowed Verge’s motorcycle development.
While we would love to share more details about the components themselves and their individual specs, Donut Lab is keeping that kind of information under wraps until a more formal product announcement at CES 2025. We want to reveal as many details as possible. Because you have to provide it as soon as you provide it.
Donut Lab’s approach to providing builders with a complete toolkit of plug-and-play components is certainly interesting, but what about the vehicles themselves? Is the company pursuing only wild and disruptive vehicle designs? That’s not to say, but the initial team-up and renderings suggest they’re leaning toward that type of product, at least in the short term.
donut lab
You may or may not remember the extremely rare Olga Unitrac, a combination of dirt bike, snowmobile, sit-on tank tread, and three-wheeled ATV with revived inline wheels. Still in development, this innovative multi-terrain machine is designed to seamlessly conquer rocks, snow, mud and sand without having to stop or pump up the tires.
Donut Lab has revealed that Oruga is one of the first companies it plans to supply. Oruga is targeted for a top speed of more than 74 mph (120 km/h) and a range of 124 to 186 miles (200 to 200 km) on lithium batteries.
donut lab
While Oruga worries onlookers on land, one of Donut Lab’s other early partners is working to revolutionize the skies. HyperQ Aerospace is leveraging Donut’s modular ecosystem to develop a scalable heavy-lift rotor called Rotorhawk. Designed as an ultra-high-speed VTOL, this remotely piloted aircraft is being developed for logistics support in emergency response, firefighting, military, agriculture, and more. Donut Lab believes its support is essential as the company develops long-range aircraft with high payload, advanced maneuverability, and long-range efficiency.
Even if ring-shaped motors didn’t pique our interest on their own, a wide range of cutting-edge use cases for these, as well as other targets such as humanoids, space rovers, and ships, are sure to get us there. Probably. Hopefully, Donut Lab will release more specific information in January about exactly what kind of “unparalleled torque and power density” we’re talking about. We will definitely look into those details and report back.
Source: Donut Lab
