China dominates the lithium-ion battery world with over 80% of global production capacity, massive gigafactories run by CATL, BYD, and CALB, and enormous state-backed investments. Nevertheless, the country may have missed the decisive train on the next big leap — the truly production-ready all-solid-state battery. The contrast becomes nowhere clearer than when comparing the KUKA acquisition of 2016 with the current, extremely low-profile breakthrough of Donut Lab, which is most likely based on the know-how of a small German Mittelstand company called CT Coating AG.
KUKA – The Old Model: Open Chinese Know-How Acquisition and Its Limits
In 2016, the Chinese household-appliance giant Midea acquired the Augsburg-based robotics specialist KUKA for approximately €4.5 billion — at the time the largest Chinese takeover in Germany. The goal was crystal clear: secure world-class automation technology to scale battery and EV production. Today, KUKA robots operate in hundreds of Chinese cell and pack lines: precise electrode coating, cell stacking, laser welding, quality inspection — everything that is critical for mass production of lithium-ion cells.
By 2022 KUKA had been fully delisted and integrated into Midea’s strategy. This was the prototypical Chinese approach of the 2010s:
- Buy visible, listed or large-scale assets
- Internalize German engineering
- Scale it massively in Shenzhen or Guangdong with state capital and low-cost labor
This worked perfectly for conventional lithium-ion batteries. For all-solid-state batteries this model is hitting hard limits:
- The breakthrough is not primarily on the machine side (robots, equipment), but in material and process innovation: solid electrolytes (sulfides, oxides, halides, polymers), interface stability, dendrite suppression, scalable coating processes without toxic solvents.
- The decisive patents and processes often reside in small, non-listed Mittelstand companies, university spin-offs or license networks — exactly the kind of entities that are very difficult to acquire.
- Since 2020/2021 Germany and the EU have massively tightened foreign direct investment screening rules (EU FDI Screening Regulation, amendments to the German Foreign Trade and Payments Act). Takeovers in critical technologies such as batteries, semiconductors or quantum technologies have become almost impossible.
China is strong in semi-solid-state cells (e.g. Svolt, Geely, NIO with 360–450 Wh/kg semi-solid in 2026–2027) and hybrid approaches, but in true all-solid-state (no liquid content, genuine mass-production readiness) it is lagging. Official timelines from CATL, BYD and QingTao still point to 2027–2030 for first commercial volumes.
Donut Lab & CT Coating AG – The New European Way: Stealth Instead of Takeover
This is exactly where the current Donut Lab case comes in. The Finnish startup (a spin-off from Verge Motorcycles) presented the Donut Battery at CES 2026: allegedly the world’s first production-ready all-solid-state battery with
- 400 Wh/kg energy density
- 5-minute fast charging
- 100,000 charge cycles
- Temperature range –22 °C to +100 °C (some claims even +212 °C)
- No rare earths, no cobalt, low lithium content
- Already integrated into Verge TS Pro / TS Ultra motorcycles (deliveries announced for Q1/Q2 2026)
The reaction was polarized: massive hype in the EV community, but also harsh criticism (Svolt CEO Yang Hongxin essentially called it a “scam”, many experts doubt the physical feasibility of the parameters).
The decisive point: The core innovation — bipolar cell architecture + solvent-free, low-energy screen-printing process for electrodes, electrolyte layers and bipolar foils — most likely originates from Germany, specifically from CT Coating AG (Königswinter, North Rhine-Westphalia), a tiny Mittelstand company with 11–50 employees.
CT Coating specializes in:
- Screen-printing of nanopastes and functional layers
- Toxin-free, solvent-free coating processes
- Energy-efficient production of bipolar battery foils
- Scalable, low-cost manufacturing without expensive drying ovens or vacuum equipment
The connection to Donut Lab runs through an invisible network:
- Holyvolt (Swedish-German, laboratory in Munich) as possible licensee or further developer
- Sana Energy (Spanish-German) for bipolar architecture
- Nordic Nano (Finland, Imatra) for roll-to-roll nano-printing
- Original materials research partly from the University of Eastern Finland (silicon nanomaterials for anode stability)
Officially there is no confirmation, no press release, no public patents directly naming Donut Lab. Everything runs via NDAs, supplier contracts and discreet collaborations.
This is intelligent stealth policy in its purest form:
- No big branding, no stock-market listing ? no attractive takeover target
- Fragmented cross-border collaborations ? know-how remains distributed and hard to grasp
- Focus on process know-how instead of expensive capital equipment ? scalable in small steps, without billion-euro investments
- Result: A small Finnish startup can make a global claim with German Mittelstand know-how — before China catches up with its semi-solid lines (currently 2–3 GWh pilot scale).
The Paradigm Shift – and Why China Underestimated It
KUKA symbolizes the old model: China buys visible, large-scale German engineering, integrates it and scales it massively.
CT Coating AG + Donut Lab symbolizes the new model:
- Stay invisible
- Operate in small, non-acquirable units
- Protect process innovations instead of selling machines
- Be secured by European FDI protection rules
If the independent VTT measurement reports (announced for February 23, 2026 — in two days) confirm even a significant portion of Donut Lab’s extreme claims, this would be a historic moment: A Finnish-German stealth network would have overtaken China — despite all its resources, state billions and KUKA robots — on the decisive next step.
This would not only be a technical but a strategic teaching case: In the high-tech of the 2030s, victory no longer goes to the biggest factory or the most aggressive takeover — but to the smartest discretion and the cleverest protection network.
