Donut Lab, a subsidiary of electric motorcycle company Verge Motorcycles, has created a modular electric vehicle development platform for applications on land, sea and air.

The platform provides manufacturers with a library of compatible components they can use to produce EVs such as supercars, buses, drones or SUVs that are light and affordable to manufacture. The platform’s scalability also suits a variety of other applications, including helicopters, robots and space mission ATVs.

The donut-shaped motor is designed to enable high performance, and a motor installed directly in the wheel eliminates the need for a drivetrain. Other key components of the Donut platform include battery modules, computer units and vehicle control software. The components are available in a range of sizes and performance classes. The components can also work separately from the platform, so that a manufacturer can, for example, incorporate a donut motor into a vehicle built using traditional mechanisms.

The Donut platform speeds up the EV development cycle and can reduce the resource requirements by up to 95% from the current level, according to the company.

Oruga, a Latvian off-road EV manufacturer, used the Donut platform in the development of its most recent one-roller vehicle, which combines features of a snowmobile and a motorcycle to travel in challenging terrains such as sand, mud and snow.

“In the future, those utilizing 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 as a standalone component, and together they take the vehicles and their manufacturing to a whole new level,” said Ville Piippo, Product Director of Donut Lab.

Source: Donut Lab