What’s happening in the electric motorbike industry? A message from THE PACK

THE PACK exists because we believe in the electric motorbike industry, not as a marketing concept, not as a stock ticker, but as a genuine transformation in the way people move through the world. We have dedicated ourselves to being ambassadors for this space: to amplifying the companies doing real work, and to building a community of riders who are excited about what electric motorcycles can become.

This week we heard disturbing news in several media about Damon Motors, Verge Motorcycles, and Donut Lab. Summarized:

At Damon Motors, the company’s website has gone dark. Over 3,000 riders placed deposits, worth more than $100 million CAD, on motorcycles that were promised for 2021, then 2024, then 2026. The CEO, CFO, and entire board of directors have all resigned. Both co-founders have left. The engineering team responsible for the prototypes is gone. There is no manufacturing facility. Investment has dried up completely. And more than 3,000 people are still waiting.

At Verge Motorcycles and Donut Lab, the situation is different in nature but equally serious. A criminal complaint has been filed by a whistleblower, the chief commercial officer of Nordic Nano Group, an R&D company that worked with Donut Lab, alleging that the technological claims made for the solid-state Donut Battery are not true, and that the company exaggerated its claims and misrepresented its ability to take the battery into mass production. These are not fringe voices: the CEO of battery manufacturer SVOLT called it a scam, and the head of off-China operations of CATL said the announced claims are clearly fake. Riders were told deliveries would begin in Q1 2026. That has not happened.

We are disappointed. We are disappointed for every rider who placed a deposit and waited, in some cases for years, for a motorcycle that may never arrive. We are disappointed for the engineers and employees who put genuine effort into what they believed was a real project. And we are disappointed for this industry, which we love, and which is made harder by companies that treat bold promises as a substitute for actual delivery.

Guy Salens, THE PACK: “We also need to be transparent about our own role in this. THE PACK has previously covered and amplified announcements from these companies, because we reported in good faith on what they publicly stated. We were misled. Their press releases presented claims as fact that were either undeliverable or, in the case of Donut Lab’s battery technology, now the subject of a criminal complaint. We did not knowingly publish false information, but we did publish information that turned out to be false. That matters to us, and our community deserves to know it.”

THE PACK remains committed, more than ever, to holding this industry to the standard it deserves. It was a sad week …