Donut motors are ‘the best in the world by any parameter’
10 January 2025 
Donut Labs, the Finnish drive system developer, has revealed more details of its range of doughnut-shaped electric motors and associated technologies at the CES 2025 exhibition in Las Vegas, US. It unveiled a family of five motors, ranging from a 120mm-diameter device weighing 1.5kg which is capable of delivering 3kW of peak power and 20Nm of peak torque, to a 21”-diameter 630kW machine weighing 40kg that can deliver 4.3kNm of peak torque. The motors – first announced late last year after several years of stealth development – are aimed principally at transport applications from drones to trucks, but could also have non-automotive applications such as powering robots.
Donut Lab’s CEO Marko Lehtimäki claims that the motors are “the best electric motor in the world by any parameter”. They offer “incredible performance not available with any other technology,” he adds, and will deliver the highest power and torque characteristics both per kilogram, and per dollar. Unlike other technologies, that are optimised for either for power or torque, the Donut machines are designed to excel at both. “It’s a really magical piece of technology,” he declares.
Donut Lab’s modular platform consists of a suite of compatible components, such as battery packs and vehicle computers, as well as the motors. These components are designed to work together without any manual integration, simplifying and accelerating the development of applications.
AT CES, Donut Lab announced a partnership with the Finnish software company Qt, which has introduced a “game-changer” application for automating and streamlining the development of vehicle HMIs. Called Qt Accelerate, the application will soon be integrated into the Donut platform. It will automatically recognise vehicle configurations and create HMIs that match the vehicle’s features.
“Qt Accelerate offers an extremely fast and efficient way to create HMIs fully automatically without programming and is designed specifically for the needs of the automotive industry,” says Lehtimäki. “Our collaboration provides significant advantages to the development of vehicles, and it is also the first step in building a broader ecosystem for the Donut platform.”
Donut is aiming to speed up the development of vehicle software 10-fold, while enhancing vehicle testing and safety. It says it is developing the world’s first no-code environment for vehicles, which means that, in the future, all software logic for cars and drones can be done via a graphical user interface, instead of writing traditional code. This will cut the number of errors, increase safety and accelerate development work, the company says
“Although the physical components of the Donut platform, such as the motor and battery pack, are already revolutionising the automotive industry, a completely new software layer has also been part of the plan from the very beginning,” Lehtimäki explains. “With the help of an intelligent software layer, we can automatically integrate physical components, but in addition to this, we are now developing future software development solutions that will make vehicle development significantly more efficient and agile. At the core of all of this is advanced AI, and in the future, the AI features of the Donut platform will improve vehicle design, development, testing and validation in unimaginable ways.”
Donut has compared its technology with the conventional way of designing and building electric vehicles, and claims that for a compact SUV, it needs 75% fewer components, eliminating almost 120 parts. It can also save up to eight hours of assembly time per vehicle, cut the vehicle’s weight by 85kg, and achieve a materials cost saving of €2,000. For a truck, the weight saving could be 1,100kg, with the BOM being cut by €15,000.
Lehtimäki predicts that the new family of motors “will change the way we build EVs”.
Donut Labs: Facebook
