Cars got electrified, nobody in 2026 looks at the EV industries success and thinks “what a bad idea”
But plenty of people in the late 90s did when the EV-1 came out with its lead-acid and later NiMH batteries. Modern EV battery tech wasn’t built for EVs, it was built for general applications, worked its way into consumer electronics and then from there into EVs. In fact, many modern EV batteries are made up of 18650 cells which were first used in laptops.
The Donut labs thing would make sense if they were also spinning off an energy company and just using the motorcycle business to get attention. Tesla and Ford have already successfully spun off energy branches though in their case it’s more to take advantage of their production capacity over any major leap in battery tech.
Random link says global motorcycle sales are $174 billion.
Motorcycles are just such a small market compared to the application space for a high performance EV battery. It makes no sense to limit a new battery to that.
But plenty of people in the late 90s did when the EV-1 came out with its lead-acid and later NiMH batteries. Modern EV battery tech wasn’t built for EVs, it was built for general applications, worked its way into consumer electronics and then from there into EVs. In fact, many modern EV batteries are made up of 18650 cells which were first used in laptops.
The Donut labs thing would make sense if they were also spinning off an energy company and just using the motorcycle business to get attention. Tesla and Ford have already successfully spun off energy branches though in their case it’s more to take advantage of their production capacity over any major leap in battery tech.
Random link says global motorcycle sales are $174 billion.
https://www.freedoniagroup.com/industry-study/global-motorcycles
Ford motor company sold $183 billion in 2025 alone.
https://s205.q4cdn.com/882619693/files/doc_financials/2025/q4/Ford-Q4-2025-Earnings-Press-Release.pdf
Motorcycles are just such a small market compared to the application space for a high performance EV battery. It makes no sense to limit a new battery to that.