Doughnut motor could power everything from drones to robots
25 November 2024 
A Finnish company has come up with a modular kit of parts that it says can be used to create almost any form of electrically powered transport, from drones and motorbikes to buses and boats, rapidly and at low cost. It could even be used to build robots, or rover vehicles for planetary exploration. At the heart of Donut Lab’s scalable, modular platform is a doughnut-shaped electric motor that, it claims, performs better than other motors in all types of vehicle.
The other key elements of the platform are fast-charging, high-performance batteries, an AI-powered controller, and smart software. The components are available in a range of sizes and performance classes, and the modular architecture allows the components to be used together to build a variety of vehicles – or even robots.
Donut Lab says that its platform offers manufacturers a “library” of inter-compatible components that can be used to produce new vehicles in record time. It promises that vehicles built on the platform will have significantly better performance and be lighter and more affordable to manufacture.
The components can also be used by themselves. Manufacturers can, for example, incorporate the motor into a vehicle built using traditional mechanisms. However, when the elements are combined, they are said to deliver “unprecedented” performance.
The doughnut-shaped motors can be installed directly in vehicle wheels, eliminating the need for transmission components and making it simpler and more affordable to manufacture lighter vehicles.
Donut Labs says that the direct-drive motors will offer “unmatched power and torque density”. They will reduce wear and extend lifespans. And, with few moving parts, the need for maintenance will also be reduced.
The motors can be controlled “at a millisecond frequencies”, allowing precision adjustments in real time, and delivering a level of responsiveness “far beyond what traditional systems can achieve”.
Donut Labs says that its direct-drive motors will offer “unmatched power and torque density”Donut Lab is a subsidiary of an electric motorcycling pioneer, Verge Motorcycles.
“Verge TS is the world’s most advanced electric motorcycle,” says Donut Lab’s CEO, Marko Lehtimäki. “When developing it, we learned how difficult and slow it is to build electric vehicles using traditional mechanisms. The reason for this is that vehicles are built with components from different equipment manufacturers and are not designed to work together – integration work always takes up most of the time. We decided that if we were able to solve this, we would change the entire automotive industry.”
The platform speeds up the development cycle of vehicles and can reduce the resource requirements for vehicle development by up to 95% compared to the current level, according to Donut. Work that used to take several years can now be completed in a matter of months, it adds.
“We want to set a new standard for what electric transportation can achieve,” says Donut Lab’s product director, Ville Piippo. “The Donut platform creates entirely new opportunities for almost any industry. In the future, those utilising the platform will be able to select the components they want from a catalogue and connect them with standard connectors, after which everything is ready. There is no need for compromises since each component is top class already as a standalone component, and together they take the vehicles themselves and their manufacturing to a whole new level.”
Donut Lab says that it has already attracted a lot of interest from vehicle manufacturers, and is collaborating with various companies to use its platform both to electrify existing vehicles and to produce completely new vehicles.
For example, a Latvian company called Oruga is using the Donut Lab platform to power a futuristic vehicle that combines a snowmobile with a motorcycle.
Oruga CEO Erick Pastor says the company is redefining off-road vehicles by building “the world’s first electric single-roller off-road vehicle designed to travel effortlessly in challenging terrains, such as sand, mud and snow”.
He believes that Donut Lab is setting new standards for the industry, and that its platform will allow for “unprecedented configuration and performance that no other competitor can offer. No other operator has been able to achieve this level of innovation, and we are excited to be part of it.”
Another early adopter is an Australian company, Hyper Q Aerospace, which is using the Donut platform for its high-speed (more than 250 knots) electrically powered rotorcraft that could carry payloads of up to three tonnes. Hyper Q envisages stacking the motors to power its agile VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) craft, which would need no gearboxes. It believes that its pilotless aircraft will be able to fly almost twice as fast as a conventional, single-rotor-disk helicopters or most multi-rotor designs.
The global electric transport market is predicted to reach 4.4 trillion dollars by 2032. Donut Lab, sees huge potential by bringing all of the components needed for electric vehicles in a single platform.
Donut Labs: Facebook
