Properly disposing of used car batteries is important. Whether lead-acid or newfangled lithium-ion, batteries contain toxic and potentially flammable chemicals that can leak if not handled properly. Three recent incidents around the country show that not everybody is aware of this fact.

This past Friday, a City of Rio Bravo, Texas, garbage truck was damaged after a trash container full of car batteries was emptied into it, reports the Laredo Morning Times. A city official told the paper that the damage to the truck was “significant,” but did not go into the details, instead focusing on the need for a specialized mechanic to work on the truck in order to prepare residents for a potential disruption in trash pickups while the truck was out of service.

Garbage trucks squeeze their cargo in large hydraulic compactors. That’s not a good thing when batteries are involved, as crushing them can release chemicals that are an ignition source away from combustion.

That’s exactly what happened earlier this week in Roseville, California. On Wednesday officials in the Northern California city, near the state capital of Sacramento, released a video of lithium-ion batteries catching fire in the back of a garbage truck. They asked residents not to toss these batteries in the trash. Sacramento Fire officials told the local CBS News station that these fires can also release toxic gas, and they happen very quickly.

“Once you see a lithium-ion battery rupture inside the back of a trash truck, the chain reaction happens so quickly and so violently that it causes the fire to expand very rapidly,” Justin Sylvia of Sacramento Fire said.

The same day the City of Roseville released its PSA, the fire department of Troy, Michigan, reported a garbage-truck fire caused by lithium-ion batteries. The driver dumped the truck’s contents in order to prevent the fire from spreading from the bin into the truck itself, according to a Facebook post. Firefighters found a lithium-ion battery among the debris when extinguishing the blaze, which they judged to be the cause.

Incidents like these are nothing new—Gothamist reported on a spate of battery fires in New York City garbage trucks in 2024—but the fact that there were three of them in the span of the week is decidedly not good. Instead of becoming the cause of one of these news stories, always dispose of car batteries at designated recycling points like parts stores and household hazardous waste drop-offs. There’s a reason batteries have that label of a tiny garbage can with a slash through it.

• Nio’s battery swapping tech is hotter than ever.
• The automaker’s customers managed to swap more than 1 million batteries in just a week.
• Its highest day of swaps during this last sprint was 170,585 batteries—and that wasn’t even its all-time record.

EVs might be getting uber-fast at charging, but there’s still one refueling method in China that makes plugging in feel as archaic as feeding your horse some oats. We’re talking about Nio’s battery swapping tech. Pull in, wait about three minutes, and leave with a fully-charged pack. It’s kind of like going to a car wash, but it gives your car a fresh battery instead of making it squeaky clean.

How popular is it getting, you ask? Well, Nio’s recent statistics point out that during China’s recent May Day travel rush, it completed over 1 million battery swaps in a single week.

Photo by: Nio

Nio was able to perform 1,031,469 separate battery-swapping sessions between April 30 and May 6—or about 147,350 swaps per day. That’s an average of 270 swaps across its 3,839 battery swapping stations, or right around 40 per-site, per-day.

The actual highest day of use was May 1 where Nio swapped out 170,585 batteries. This was a huge number of swaps, but still didn’t quite beat the automaker’s record of 177,627 in a single day (which Nio says was set on February 22nd during the height of China’s Spring Festival travel rush).

Even more impressive was the amount of power delivered via the stations. From May 1 until May 5, Nio says that it provided 15.4 gigawatt-hours of energy, which it claims was around 16.3% of all energy delivered to EVs in China over the same period of time. 

Battery swapping has several notable advantages over charging. One is speed. While even the quickest charging stop in the U.S. takes around 20 minutes, and most EVs require more like 30-40, an automated battery-pack swap can take just a few minutes. The batteries are charged slowly on site, reducing the location’s power needs. And the framework enables different battery packs for different use cases. For example, when they embark on a road trip, Nio owners can pay extra for a bigger pack with more range. 

As cool as it is, battery swapping does come with some unique challenges. Automakers have to invest in a bunch of spare batteries to store at the site. And interoperability is an issue; Nio’s stations only work with its Nio and Onvo brands. For this to take off industry-wide and become the new default form of EV charging, you’d need to have battery packs that were swappable between manufacturers. (Nio is working with Chinese battery giant CATL on battery-swapping standards.)

In the U.S., the tech has been in its infancy for years. A California-based startup, Ample, had been piloting battery-swapping for ride-hailing drivers and had inked some preliminary deals with automakers, but it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy late last year. 

Nio, meanwhile, is pushing ahead. And its swapping stations have proved popular. In fact, Nio has performed more than 100 million battery swaps since 2018.The automaker’s fifth-generation battery swapping facilities will soon begin deployment across China, allowing the stations to support larger wheelbases and help to future proof the tech.

On April 15, SAIC officially pulled the covers off the new 2026 MG4. This popular hatchback is getting ready for its big public party at the Beijing Auto Show. The car might look familiar to fans of the brand, but it packs a lot of new surprises under the metal.

The 2026 MG4 keeps the familiar look that made the original model a hit. It still has the pointy headlights and the black bumper at the bottom that gives it a sporty vibe. If you look closely at the front, you will see a small blue light. This is not just for show. It tells people outside the car when the computer is helping the driver. On the side, the car keeps its “floating roof” look, which makes the top part of the car seem like it is hovering. To freshen things up, MG added a new set of 17-inch rims.

2026 MG4 – source: Car News China

Inside the cabin, the changes are even bigger. MG is offering two new interior colors called Yacht Blue and Midnight Purple. These colors make the car feel more like a lounge than a standard commuter vehicle. The dashboard looks very clean because the air vents are hidden from view. A 15.6-inch central touchscreen with a high-quality 2.5K resolution sits in the middle of the dash. The driver also gets an 8.8-inch digital screen to show speed and battery levels.

One of the coolest updates is the new Doubao 3.0 smart assistant built into the car. You can talk to it normally, and it will understand what you need. Even better, it has four-zone voice recognition. This means if someone in the back seat asks to change the music, the car knows exactly who is talking. The AI can open the sunroof, change the air conditioning, or find a nearby restaurant just by listening to your voice.

2026 MG4 – source: Car News China

Comfort is a big deal in the 2026 MG4. The front seats come with a massage feature that hits eight different points on your back. They are also heated and ventilated, so you stay comfortable whether it is hot or cold outside. The person in the front passenger seat even gets an electric leg rest. This is a feature you usually only see in very expensive limousines. People in the back are not forgotten, either. The rear seat cushions are 22.5 inches long, giving passengers plenty of support for their legs on long trips.

The new MG4 gets a smart driving system from Horizon Robotics. It gives the car “Level 2 Plus” abilities. This means the car can help with driving on the highway. It can stay in its lane, change lanes when you use the turn signal, and even overtake slower cars on its own. The car is also great at parking. It can find spots at low speeds and park itself in “dead-end” roads where space is very tight.

Interior of the 2026 MG4 – source: Car News China

When it comes to power, the MG4 has plenty of it. The single electric motor produces 120 kW, which is about 161 horsepower. It also has 184 lb-ft of torque, which helps the car pull away from stoplights quickly. Buyers can choose between two main battery sizes. The 42.8 kWh battery lets you drive about 272 miles on a single charge. If you need more, the 53.9 kWh battery goes up to 329 miles. There is even a semi-solid-state battery version that can travel 317 miles.

Charging is a breeze as well. Thanks to the 3C fast charging support, you can go from a 30% battery to 80% in 18 minutes. For those who enjoy driving, the steering has been improved with a dual-pinion system, making it feel more connected to the road compared to older systems. The MG4 has been a huge success so far, selling over 10,000 units every month in China. With all these new upgrades, it looks like that success will continue for a long time.

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Honda’s Formula 1 power unit effort is effectively starting over from scratch with new partner Aston Martin. That’s naturally going to lead to some teething problems as it gets up to speed with the competition, in addition to the new 2026 engine regulations presenting uncharted territory for everyone. Among those problems are nagging vibrations that, according to Honda Racing’s powertrain boss, are shaking the hybrid system’s batteries to death.

Ikuo Takeishi, who runs HRC’s power unit operation, told the media that Aston had to call off a day of testing in Bahrain earlier in the month because of “abnormal vibrations” that damaged the battery system.

“We stopped the car because we felt it shouldn’t continue running in that state,” Takeishi said to Motorsport.com. “It wasn’t that an accident was imminent or anything like that, but we stopped the car because it was dangerous.”

Not imminent—just dangerous. Worse yet, Takeishi said the crew hasn’t yet been able to pinpoint precisely where the vibrations are coming from. It could be the powertrain, or the chassis, or a combination of both. What he is sure of, though, is that the battery is being rocked around in its cage, and the team’s been faced with a hefty fact-finding mission.

“You could think of it as the battery pack being shaken within the vehicle body. Essentially, the area where the battery pack is attached is vibrating,” Takeishi summed up, adding that, “If the cause were pinpointed to something like the transmission or the engine, it would be much easier to tackle. However, I suspect multiple components are interacting to generate the vibration. Given that, it’s unclear whether fixing one part alone will resolve it, so we can’t rule out the possibility of this dragging on.”

The trouble is, the damage has already been done to Aston and Honda’s pre-season testing, as the team was able to amass only about 1,300 miles across all testing sessions—practically a tenth of Mercedes’ total, and well below everybody else’s after ripping through all its spare batteries on the last day in Bahrain. Now it’s a sprint to mitigate the problem as much as possible before the season begins in Australia next weekend. It sounds like Honda’s homecoming race at Suzuka at the end of March, however, poses a more likely timeframe for a solution.

“The recent pre-season tests in Barcelona and Bahrain were, frankly speaking, extremely challenging for us,” HRC president Koji Watanabe said. “We were unable to achieve the performance levels we had anticipated, and a complex set of issues became apparent. However, these tests were also a crucial process in that they allowed us to visualise these challenges.”

Still, Watanabe stressed that Honda is in this for the long haul with Aston Martin, saying that he believes the two sides “are united in our desire to resolve matters as one team.” The early days ahead might be tough—ask anyone who’s stuck around the company since its foray back into F1 a decade ago with McLaren. But if the two parties can push through, they might just discover glory in the end. Honda’s got the recent hardware to prove it, after all.

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The batteries that we use to power electric vehicles rely on heavy metals like cobalt and nickel. Unfortunately, these metals are hard to find, are expensive, and often come from places with poor working conditions. But a new study published on February 18, 2026, shows that we might be able to trade those heavy metals for something much lighter and more common: organic polymers.

Professor Xun Yinhua from Tianjin University and Professor Huang Fei from South China University of Technology led the team of scientists. Their work, featured in the journal Nature, describes a new kind of “organic” battery. Instead of the usual metal-filled parts, this battery uses a special plastic-like material called PBFDO, which acts as the cathode.

Most EVs today use batteries that are sensitive to the weather. If it gets too cold, they lose power. If it gets too hot, they can become dangerous. This new organic battery is different. It can work in temperatures as low as -94°F and as high as 176°F. This massive working range means an electric car could start easily in a freezing Arctic winter or drive through a scorching desert without any trouble.

The researchers built real “pouch cells,” which reached an energy density of 250 Wh/kg. That’s as much energy as the high-tech batteries found in many electric cars on the road today. Usually, when scientists try to use organic materials, the batteries are too weak, but this time, they proved that an organic battery can actually keep up with the current tech.

Traditional lithium batteries can catch fire if they get pierced or crushed in an accident. The team of scientists put their new battery through some serious tests, including driving a needle straight through it. The battery didn’t smoke, it didn’t catch fire, and it didn’t change shape.

Because the PBFDO material is a polymer, it is also very flexible. The researchers found they could bend, stretch, and squish the battery without breaking it. This is great news for the future of car design. Instead of a giant, heavy box under the floor, future batteries might be able to fit into different shapes or even be part of the car’s frame.

One of the best things about this discovery is where the materials come from. Cobalt and nickel are hard to get out of the ground, but organic polymers are made from common molecules that are easy to find. This makes the batteries much more sustainable.

The new technology is still in the prototype stage, but it fits perfectly with where the car world is going in 2026. Many car companies are already planning to show off new kinds of batteries this year – some are looking at solid-state batteries, and others are interested in using sodium. The organic polymer pathway is another tool that could make cars cheaper and easier to build.

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Earlier this month, a little-known Finnish startup shocked the world when it claimed to have beaten Toyota, Samsung, LG Energy, Quantumscape and any number of Chinese automakers at commercializing the Holy Grail of electric-vehicle power: solid-state batteries.

Helsinki-based Donut Lab said at CES 2026 that it has a class-leading solid-state battery ready to go in an upcoming electric motorcycle, boasting five-minute fast-charging and unprecedented energy density. Hopes ran high that this could be a breakthrough for a battery technology widely seen as capable of changing the world. But then, the doubts started to emerge.

“People love seeing strategic partnerships and manufacturing scale-up,” Jiayan Shi, an associate at research firm BloombergNEF specializing in electrochemistry, told InsideEVs. “It would be nice to have data for performance and safety validation,” she added.

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Source: Patrick George

For their part, Donut Lab executives maintain the technology is real, yet shrouded in mystery to protect their trade secrets. The company says the battery will soon be used in a new two-wheel EV from Verge Motorcycles. “The Donut battery surpasses what most of the industry is still planning for years from now,” Marko Lehtimaki, the co-founder and CEO of Donut Lab, said on the company’s YouTube channel. “These batteries are shipping today.”

Donut Lab and Verge Motorcycles did not respond to a detailed list of questions from InsideEVs about the technology, nor grant interviews with executives to respond to these claims. 

Battery researchers have long described solid-state batteries as a key to solving many, if not most, of the problems with current battery chemistries. They swap out the liquid chemical-based electrolyte with a solid one, promising to eliminate range anxiety, enable ultra-fast charging speeds, perform flawlessly in extreme weather and deliver unmatched safety thanks to its fireproof properties.

On paper, an all-solid-state battery would have no trade-offs, which would be a dream come true for battery engineers and consumers alike. But making them at scale without defects and at a lower cost than lithium-ion batteries is extraordinarily difficult, battery executives have previously told InsideEVs.

The Donut Labs solid-state cell on display at CES 2026.

Photo by: Patrick George

That backdrop helps explain why Donut Lab’s claims generated such extensive media attention during CES, including coverage by InsideEVs. But before diving deep, here’s a list of the company’s claims:

• The battery has 400 watt-hours per kilogram of energy density, much higher than 200-300 Wh/kg of today’s lithium-ion packs. 
• It can charge in as little as five minutes, depending on the size of the pack. 
• It can last 100,000 cycles, significantly more than today’s lithium-ion batteries, which last around 1,500-3,000 cycles. 
• No toxic or rare earth materials are involved.
• Its operating temperature ranges between -30 degrees Celsius (-22 degrees Fahrenheit) to 100C (212F).
• Costs are similar to today’s nickel-manganese-cobalt batteries, according to the company.
• The start-up has been working on the tech since 2018.

What most clearly sets Donut Lab apart from other solid-state battery announcements is its timeline. Many large battery manufacturers say the technology is unlikely to mature before the end of the decade. Donut Lab, by contrast, says its batteries will be on the road in a matter of weeks. 

Photo by: Patrick George

Verge Motorcycles’ TS Pro models equipped with its all-solid-state batteries will be delivered to customers in the U.S. and Europe starting this quarter, the company said. The Tron-inspired electric motorcycle claims to offer 370 miles of range and charge to 80% in under 10 minutes.

Battery experts and industry analysts, however, have urged caution. 

Why Experts Are Skeptical Of These Claims

“Producing all-solid-state battery cells at high yield and high volumes is significantly more complex than lithium-ion batteries,” BloombergNEF’s Shi said. “Equipment providers have not yet developed standardized commercial production lines for the diverse range of all-solid-state battery technologies.”

Moreover, the company has disclosed little about its battery chemistry or manufacturing process. There are no approved patents tied to the technology, no publicly disclosed production facility and no independent testing for the batteries just yet.

Photo by: Patrick George

Some industry analysts are skeptical, too. “Without detailed chemistry disclosure or independent testing, it’s unclear whether this technology is directly comparable to the lithium-metal solid-state batteries that Toyota and QuantumScape are developing,” Stephanie Valdez-Streaty, the director of market insights at Cox Automotive, told InsideEVs.

At least one large Chinese battery manufacturer strongly rebuked Donut’s claims. “That battery doesn’t exist in the world,” Yang Hongxin, chairman and CEO of Svolt Energy, told Chinese media last week. “The parameters are contradictory… China’s technology is the most advanced globally. If China can’t produce or perfect it, companies from other countries certainly can’t either.”

Chinese battery manufacturers currently produce some of the world’s most advanced battery packs at a massive scale and low cost. With extensive research budgets and deep manufacturing expertise, several Chinese automakers, including Geely and Chery, seem to be getting close to deploying all-solid-state batteries, but they’re not fully there yet.

BloombergNEF projects that more than 80% of the world’s solid-state battery manufacturing capacity will be concentrated in China in the coming years, so they’re expected to be ahead in developing the tech.

That raises several questions: How could a small Finnish start-up leapfrog the larger companies? Where would these batteries be made? And what technology underpins them? Donut Lab has not provided clear answers, but some clues have emerged from its recent investments and public records.

What Could This Solid-State Battery Chemistry Be?

The Donut Lab battery appears to point toward work done by another Finnish company. Last October, Donut Lab said it made a “significant strategic investment” in renewable energy start-up Nordic Nano, which specializes in nanotechnology—which involves highly precise manufacturing using nanoparticles—for solar and battery applications.

Nordic Nano also said in a report last year that it had developed a “bipolar electrostatic capacitor” for energy storage systems. The specifications described in that report closely resemble Donut Lab’s claims. The capacitor has a similar 400 Wh/kg of energy density and a lifespan of over 50,000 charging cycles with less risk of fire.

Before getting into batteries, Donut Labs developed this hubless rear wheel with an integrated electric motor, a design it claims it pioneered.

Photo by: Patrick George

Capacitors are not new to cars. Lamborghini famously used a supercapacitor in its Sian supercar for instantaneous torque fill and energy recovery. That system, however, was a small hybrid unit paired with a combustion engine.

Capacitors store energy in an electrical field between physical conductive plates, according to a study published on Science Direct, whereas batteries can store energy chemically in small cells. That means capacitors require far more space to store the same amount of energy as batteries, which is why they’re mainly used in energy storage systems.

Nordic Nano also said in that report that it had finished installing pre-production equipment at its facility in Imatra, Finland, near the Russian border in the fourth quarter of last year. Production of its carbon-based solar films and solid-state super capacitors will begin in 2026, the company said.

Donut Labs claims the solid-state battery is not limited to motorcycles. It can be engineered for cars and drones, too.

Photo by: Patrick George

Finland’s local newspaper Yle reported last week that production had started at what it described as a “mysterious factory,” adding that the company had built fencing around the site to prevent “corporate espionage.”

Lehtimaki told The Verge that Nordic Nano was not making this solid-state battery. Nordic Nano did not respond to InsideEVs’ request for comment at the time of writing.

In comments to Yle, Nordic Nano CEO Esa Parjanen said: “We don’t want to reveal where and how we make our products. It’s a trade secret.” He told the outlet that the company was using something called nanomass, which is a carbon-based composite material, in solar panels to collect energy.

The same nanomass technology can be used in battery cells, the report said, replacing lithium with an abundant material common across Europe and the world. “These nanobattery cells can withstand tens of thousands of charging cycles and can hold more energy. They are also fireproof and cannot explode,” Parjanen told the newspaper.

Photo by: Patrick George

According to one theory from EV expert Laycee Schmidtke, who runs the MissGoElectric YouTube Channel, this abundant material could, after all, be sodium. She points to Nordic Nano’s Chief Scientist, Bela Bhuskute, and her research on “titanium dioxide nanostructures” and “carbon nanotubes,” which apparently help prevent dendrites, the sharp needle-like spikes that can damage a battery.

As per her publicly available white paper, the company could be using an anode-free sodium-metal battery instead of the lithium metal anodes U.S. battery start-ups QuantumScape and Factorial are working on. Sodium is indeed far more abundant than lithium, but it doesn’t enjoy the same supply chain advantages as lithium.

If Donut Lab has indeed achieved a breakthrough, it could open a new chapter for the battery world and probably even bring a lot of attention to Europe, which is increasingly relying on Chinese battery makers eager to set up shop on the continent. If not, it could join a long list of failed start-ups that promise bold things and fail to deliver.

The good news is it’s only a matter of weeks, not years, before experts will start tearing down the battery pack and determine whether the solid-state technology is real or not. For now, Donut Lab maintains that it’s the real deal and coming soon: “At Donut Lab, our answer on solid state batteries being ready for use in OEM production vehicles is now, today, not later,” Lehtimaki has said.

Contact the author: suvrat.kothari@insideevs.com