Ziroth's host spends part of his latest Donut Lab video on one line from a lab report. As he reads it, Intertek says it has not verified that the device it examined is a working battery cell that can be charged and discharged. It is a strange line for a battery's paperwork, and it raises the question behind every story today: when a company puts out a number, which version of the product produced it?
In Donut Lab's case, the answer keeps moving, by the video's account. The host lists a cell that fast charged and then swelled after heat exposure, a version 1.5 verified at 409 Wh/kg with no other tests reported, a version two still to come, and now bipolar stacks whose voltages he reads as zinc-based. Each test may be genuine. None of them, he argues, covers the single cell that is supposed to charge fast, store 400 Wh/kg and last 100,000 cycles at once. Zeekr's version of the problem is milder and far more common. Ben Alexxander notes that the 13-minute charge and the 615 km range in the 7X's Australian pitch come from two different cars: the quick charge from the 75 kWh rear-drive model, the long range from the 100 kWh one.
Shoppers meet the same thing at trim level. Out of Spec's three-way test ran its R2 Performance on all-terrain tires, which the hosts say are rated only about 20 miles lower on the EPA cycle, and it still managed just 212 miles at 70 mph on a cool night, against 340 for BMW's iX3. That R2 also happened to be an early car with seat-back cooling, the feature Tom Moloughney found missing from his later R2 in yesterday's edition. One model name, two different seats.
Aviation leaves less room for that kind of blur, which makes PBS NewsHour's visit to Beta Technologies a useful contrast. The FAA, the report explains, expects enough battery to reach the destination, divert to an alternate and fly another 45 minutes, so the number that counts is what remains after the reserves. A University of Michigan professor puts that at about five passengers and 150 nautical miles with today's batteries. Vauxhall's STX concept sits at the far end: no battery, range or charging figures at all, so there is not yet a version to argue about.
The habit worth building is simple. When a figure shows up, look for what is attached to it: the trim, the tire, the pack size, the cell revision, the charger it was measured on. Zeekr's own Australian launch page from August 2025 already ties the 13-minute claim to a room-temperature test on a 450 kW charger. What to watch next is whether Donut Lab publishes charging and cycle results for one cell, and whether Rivian tells R2 buyers which seat they are getting. Both answers would fit in a sentence.
Ziroth Says Donut Lab's Newest Cells May Not Even Be Rechargeable
Donut Lab unveiled its battery at CES 2026, and in early September it publicized fresh results: Automotive World reported that Finland's VTT had verified 409 Wh/kg and that Intertek had confirmed the cell's bipolar structure and run a nail test on it. Ziroth's host reads that evidence very differently. He says the 409 Wh/kg cell came with no other tests, that the bipolar cells are a separate design, and that their per-layer voltages, roughly 1.5 to 1.65 volts, look to him like a zinc-based chemistry, which he stresses is a hypothesis. He reads Intertek's report as declining to confirm the bipolar cell can be charged and discharged, and says Donut Lab did not answer when he asked. He also covers a case Donut Lab's subsidiary Nordic Nano Group brought against one of its co-founders in the Helsinki District Court. By his reading of the court papers, a temporary order limiting what the co-founder could say was granted in May and later lifted, and the court refused the company's wider requests as too vague, though it returned the co-founder's work laptop and phone to the company and rejected his claim that the suit was abusive. The host argues the case looked aimed at keeping fraud allegations quiet. That is his interpretation, and he notes proceedings are still ongoing.
Vauxhall's STX Concept Previews the Next Estate, but Not What Powers It
Electrifying looked over Vauxhall's STX, a design concept for an estate of roughly 4.7 meters that the presenter expects to shape the next Astra, alongside a reworked griffin badge drawn sharper so it reads better when lit. The concept has illuminated vertical strakes on the nose, rolled wheel-arch edges for airflow and a rear panel that, the video says, flips open above a certain speed to extend the body with lit winglets. Top Gear, which also covered the reveal, reports a 124 mph top speed and says the car will never be built. Design chief Mark Adams, the presenter says, confirmed the vertical light signature will stay on future Vauxhalls and backed keeping physical buttons inside. There was no interior to sit in and no battery, range or charging information; the presenter's own guess for the next Astra is about 300 miles. For buyers, that makes the STX a styling preview rather than a spec sheet worth waiting for. The presenter also asks whether Vauxhall would shake its image problem in Britain by selling its cars as Opels, the name used in Germany.
PBS Flies Beta's Electric Plane and Finds the Battery Is Still the Bottleneck
PBS NewsHour aviation correspondent Miles O'Brien flew Beta Technologies' fixed-wing Alia over Vermont with founder and CEO Kyle Clark, then toured the company's Burlington factory. Clark says regulation takes most of his time, because rules written for turbine aircraft have to be applied to electric ones. The report notes that federal support has swung from electric cars toward electric flight, citing Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy's flight with Clark in May and an FAA program it says covers eight projects across 26 states. The plane's pack, per the report, holds 13,000 lithium-ion cells in 55 modules. Venkat Viswanathan, an aerospace engineering professor at the University of Michigan, explains why aircraft batteries are hard: they must deliver high power at both the start and the end of a discharge. The report adds that FAA rules require enough charge to divert to an alternate and fly another 45 minutes. His estimate for today's batteries is about five passengers and 150 nautical miles. Beta, the report says, raised about $1 billion in a November 2025 IPO, and its shares have since fallen roughly 40 percent. The FAA official interviewed, then deputy administrator Chris Rocheleau, announced in late July that he was leaving the agency to return to the National Business Aviation Association, according to an alert from the American Association of Airport Executives.
Out of Spec's Three-Way Test Goes to BMW's iX3, Mostly on Battery
Out of Spec Reviews brought three similarly priced electric SUVs to a track: a Rivian R2 Performance, a Tesla Model Y L and the new BMW iX3, just reaching North America. Kyle, the host, sorts them by buyer. The iX3 is the road-trip car: he quotes 112 kWh of usable capacity, an 800-volt-class system and 400 kW charging. BMW USA lists the iX3 50 xDrive at $61,500 before a $1,350 destination charge, with an EPA estimate of 383 miles on its standard all-season tires. In the team's overnight test at 70 mph, around 50°F with some wind, the iX3 covered 340 miles, the Model Y L about 290 and the R2 212. In his telling, the Model Y L wins on rear-seat space, a third row and quiet, and he uses its Full Self-Driving (Supervised), at $100 a month, daily on a 150-mile commute. The R2 wins on looks, packaging and fun. Complaints, by the hosts' account, were spread around: no cooled seats or pet mode on the iX3, an R2 trim panel that kept popping loose, and a Tesla that charges slowly after its peak. The hosts also say Rivian dropped the seat-back cooling fan from later R2s without telling buyers or lowering the price. The four-person panel did not agree, but Kyle names the iX3 the winner.
Zeekr's 13-Minute Charge and 615 km Range Belong to Different 7X Versions
Ben Alexxander's point is that Zeekr's two best numbers for the Australian 7X do not describe one car. The rear-drive version uses a 75 kWh LFP pack, which Zeekr calls the Golden Battery, with a claimed 10 to 80 percent charge in 13 minutes and a WLTP range of 480 km. The 615 km figure belongs to the long-range version and its 100 kWh pack. He says Zeekr's Australian specifications list an 800-volt system and up to 450 kW of DC charging for the smaller battery, and that the 13-minute result was measured at room temperature on a liquid-cooled 460 kW charger. Zeekr's own Australian launch post from August 2025 attaches the same 13-minute figure to a 450 kW charger. His arithmetic is the useful part: adding about 52.5 kWh in 13 minutes takes an average of roughly 242 kW, so a 150 kW charger would need at least 21 minutes before losses and taper. He sets the claim against a Peugeot concept shown October 12 with a Factorial solid-state cell and a claimed 10-minute charge, while pointing out that one is a car on sale and the other is a concept. A charge time, he adds, says nothing about how much capacity a pack keeps after years of use.
Bottom line: The fix for most of today's confusion costs nothing. Zeekr only has to print each number next to the car it describes, and Rivian could settle the seat question with one line on its order page. Donut Lab is a different case. On Ziroth's evidence, it has spent ten months testing cells other than the one it promised, and a stack of unrelated test reports does not add up to proof. Until one cell shows the charging speed, energy density and cycle life together, treat the claims as unproven.
Commentary on third-party videos. Figures and claims are as presented in the sources and have not been independently verified. Spotted an error? Tell us and we will correct it.