Clearly, the founder and CEO of Donut Lab eats a lot of pies, but that didn’t stop Marko Lehtimäki from heading to CES, setting up a flashy display, and cosplaying as a genius inventor. When the story first broke, my immediate thought was: how on earth has a tiny startup managed to beat industrial battery giants that spend billions on R&D to bring production-ready solid-state batteries to market?

As it turns out, all you really need is a tiny marketing budget, a copy of 3ds Max, and a generous amount of professional-grade gaslighting. A few days later, once the initial hype wore off, we learned that it may all have been a scam.

Dig a little deeper and things get even stranger. Finnish native Marko Lehtimäki previously had a career as a Christian rapper, before building a smartphone app that solved some problem and reportedly made him a millionaire.

He then set up Donut Lab and — well, who knows — seemingly decided to try scamming his way to the top. In any case, Electric Viking breaks down why Donut Lab could be the Hitler Diaries moment of the year for the EV world.

Donut Lab has yet to respond to or address the growing scepticism surrounding its solid-state battery claims.