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Comment by mrtksn | Hacker News Reader

Apparently the first 3rd party test was on fast charging and the 3rd party is VTT, which is the government affiliated(owned?) "VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland"

The people listed on this report appear to be on LinkedIn, so I guess it will be easy to confirm if the test document is authentic.

The announcement of the test: https://youtu.be/d2QU_LpkSPs

Hopefully, soon we will find out if this seemingly "too good to be true" is a revolution or something else.

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> Apparently the first 3rd party test was on fast charging and the 3rd party is VTT, which is the government affiliated(owned?) "VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland"

It is a govenrment owned non-profit company.

As one of its services it will independently verify your product/invention/whatever works as claimed (for a bunch of money).

https://www.vttresearch.com/en

Fast charging, long life, low cost – pick two.

Actually, there are a bunch of other variables (energy density, stability, discharge current, etc. etc.), so the probability of a technology that improves one significantly without negatively affecting at least one other is vanishingly small. Hence the number of overhyped battery technologies that get reported but never productised.

They claim not only fast charging, long life and low cost, but also very high energy density, no degradation in low temperature, no thermal runaway, non-hazardous materials and no "geopolitical" needed.

I’ve been digging into the data (using Gemini and a few other sources). The claims behind https://idonutbelieve.com/ are pretty bold. I’d like to be optimistic, but I’m going to wait for more independent verification before drawing any conclusions.

I desperately want this to be real but LK-99 thought me to be skeptical of big announcements. AFAIK the Finnish media went brutal on them and science YouTubers reported some rumors about sketchy stuff but they seem to be rolling so far.

VTT appear to be a solid institution, so we will find out soon I guess.

Careful though, this test explicitly only tests the charge and discharge capabilities of the battery, not whether it's a solid state battery or not. According to ChatGPT, these results would in theory also be possible with a normal Li-ion battery. I am really hoping this is real though! And waiting for further tests.

FPV lipo batteries can charge at 5c all day, you might be able to get away with 11c for a few charges before degradation or becoming spicy. Agree that this proves nothing useful.

> They also published the report here: https://pub-fee113bb711e441db5c353d2d31abbb3.r2.dev/VTT_CR_0...

That's the same link. Is there a way to attest that this is an official VTT report?

Sorry, I was trying to compose a post but I was a minute late so copy-pasted the content as a comment and forgot to adopt. Removing the redundant link. Thanks.

BTW, the people who conducted the test appear to be on LinkedIn. I guess its pretty easy to confirm if the test on the company site is authentic.

The PDF is digitally signed with a cert from the Finnish „Digital and Population Data Services Agency“

Unfortunately that's not the same as VTT.

VTT would be more like "National Institute of Scientific Research"

It says its sign by this guy: https://www.vttresearch.com/en/news-and-ideas/petri-soderena...

He has an e-mail address and a phone number, I doubt that if the report is falsified it won't come out.

I just found a video of the same guy selling some magical AGI thing 9 months ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilgJKjiDLV8

Promising the moon and stars just like with Donut.

Donut Labs also had a video presentation of some kind of automotive design software that also sounded too good to be true.

This guy is a serial scammer.

Elon Musk sells self driving cars since 10 years that don't self drive but his cars are actually decent cars and his rockets are revolutionary. Also, who isn't selling magical AGI since the last 4 years?

I think i will judge the battery and the magical AGI separately. The guy also sells magical motors that appear to be real with people riding motorbikes with those motors.

Well there's this press release they would publish a report: https://www.vttresearch.com/en/news-and-ideas/donut-lab-comm... with as author the same name on the digital signature "Petri Söderena" for Organisation "Teknologian tutkimuskeskus VTT" and the chain is attested by "DVV Organisational Certificates - G4E" which is on the EU/EEA trusted list: https://eidas.ec.europa.eu/efda/trust-services/browse/eidas/... (by name and key signature). Looks like a legit VTT document to me.

I think it is safe to assume, given the buzz all around the donut battery, that VTT would immediately release a statement if this report was fake.

edit: https://www.vttresearch.com/en/news-and-ideas/donut-lab-comm...

The person whose signature is on it, is listed on VTTs website with the same title.

Considering the amount of publicity this thing gets, VTT or the person will publicly refute it pretty soon if it's a fake.

Also, VTT had publicly confirmed earlier that they had conducted tests for Donut Lab.

I'm confident the document and tests are real, but other shenanigans are still possible (and likely IMO).

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