The company has descended on the annual CES show with not one or two motors but a family of five, ranging from a tiny drone drive to a high-performance hypercar cornerstone the company crowns the world power and torque density king. Each motor promises to cut mass, boost torque and improve overall performance of the target machine.

Last month, we took a look at Donut Lab's highly ambitious plan to put electric drive components into next-gen electric machinery of all styles and sizes, from drones and robots to moon rovers and warships. At the time, the company was keeping its lips tightly sealed as to the performance specs of those motors, leaving a hole bigger than the one inside the ring-shaped e-engines themselves. After all, what's the good in carving out all that central mass if it simply results in less power and torque?

The truth actually exists at the opposite end of the spectrum from "less power and torque." At CES 2025, Donut Lab has provided a first look at its initial motor family complete with specs ... and things are looking very promising.

Let's zero in on that flagship 630-kW (845-hp) "Automotive" motor first. That 630-kW power figure is pulled from a motor weighing a mere 40 kg (88 lb), a power-to-weight ratio of 15.75 kW/kg or 9.6 hp/lb.

One of the last times we had the chance to look into the "world's most power-dense electric motor," British manufacturer Equipmake was developing its 220-kW Ampere with a 10-kg (22-lb) target weight, which would have resulted in a density of 22 kW/kg. But that motor evolved to double in weight, halving density down to 11 kW/kg, a figure Equipmake bested in 2023 with the 13.3-kW/kg HPM-400 it also reckoned was world's power-densest. The fast-growing H3X HPDM aircraft motor family, meanwhile, has achieved an ever-so-slightly higher figure of 13.4 kW/kg.

So Donut Lab's claim of 15.75 kW/kg should definitely lift eyebrows and excitement, even if it's just a preliminary estimate still susceptible to the same kind of dramatic drop we saw with the original Equipmake Ampere prototype.