A solid-state battery development lab for QuantumScape.
quantumscape
The electric vehicle space has had some impressive market share debut in recent years, but battery start-ups quantumscape The first few weeks of trading were remarkable, even by EV stock standards.
Quantumscape, which was founded in 2010, went public through a merger with a Special Purpose Acquisition Company, or SPAC. Its stock rose 49% on its first day of trading in November 2020 and hit a high of $131.67 as of December 22 – a gain of more than 400% in less than a month.
That run gave QuantumScape a $54 billion valuation, fueled by investor enthusiasm over the company’s solid-state battery technology, so called because it replaces the flammable liquid or gel electrolyte found in today’s lithium-ion batteries. puts away. What’s more, it didn’t hurt that auto giant Volkswagen There was a major investor, or that even Bill Gates took a stake.
But the hype that surrounded the company in late 2020 has all but dried up, the once red-hot stock shed nearly 92% of its value from that record high.
QuantumScape stands by the lofty claims it made in 2020 and says that its battery is still on its way to go into production in a few years’ time. But the company faces a long, cash-intensive road of testing ahead. Competition is only intensifying, and Wall Street is still waiting.
Investors may move on, but the auto industry is still watching: In addition to Volkswagen, Quantumscape said it now has three other automaker partners that have signed on to test the company’s batteries. As of now, those carmakers are not named.
a small piece of flexible ceramic
It’s not hard to see why automakers are so interested in solid-state battery technology. Today’s lithium-ion batteries are generally fairly reliable, but their size, weight and recharging time make them less than ideal for electric vehicles. And while EV fires are rare, they are intense and difficult to put out, as lithium-ion batteries can burn for hours.
The batteries Quantumscape is working to develop are called “solid state” because they do not require the liquid or gel electrolyte found inside existing batteries. A solid-state battery pack can be smaller and lighter than a lithium-ion battery pack of similar capacity, and the absence of liquid inside makes them less likely to catch fire.
In December 2020, Jagdeep Singh, CEO of QuantumScape, promised a reliable solid-state battery at large, by the middle of the decade. Here are some of the claims he made during a live stream Presentation of Preliminary Exam Results:
- QuantumScape’s battery can recharge from zero to 80% capacity in just 15 minutes, which is about half the time required for most lithium-ion EV batteries.
- An EV using the company’s batteries would have an 80% greater range than one powered by existing lithium-ion batteries, with the same weight.
- QuantumScape’s battery cells were “capable of lasting hundreds of thousands of miles” in a wide range of temperatures, including freezing to minus 22 Fahrenheit.
“If QuantumScape can get this technology into mass production, it has the potential to transform industry,” said Stan, co-inventor of the lithium-ion battery and winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, in a QuantumScape press release. Whittingham said.
It almost seemed too good to be true. Researchers had been tinkering with solid-state batteries for decades with no success.
The inventors faced a significant challenge. Such batteries were likely to fail because of dendrites – needle-like structures that form inside, often within a few weeks, which can short circuit them and end their lives.
QuantumScape’s major innovation is a separator made from a proprietary flexible ceramic material that resists dendrites and cannot catch fire. If it works as intended, the solid-state battery should be able to survive as long as a typical lithium-ion battery while keeping all hope for profit.
QuantumScape is still at least a few years away from being able to mass-produce its batteries. But its technology seems to be working in lab testing.
In that 2020 livestream test, which soared the company’s stock, QuantumScape said that a small prototype of its battery held up to more than 800 cycles of charging and draining — roughly the number that an EV’s battery would expect during its lifetime. I will tolerate
But that test battery was a smaller version, and shaping a battery ready for use in electric vehicles has been a slow process.
QuantumScape was able to repeat that 800-cycle test twice last year, with a slightly scaled-up battery. A large one made it through 500 cycles in a round of testing earlier this year. But the company is still a few more development rounds away from achieving a full-size prototype.
‘Sample’ Road Map
The steps needed to prepare QuantumScape’s batteries for on-the-road use will take at least two years – and possibly more – to complete.
Once the current prototype meets the 800-cycle test limit, the company will need to build and test an “A sample” battery that’s nearly full-size, but still not quite what it takes to eventually become larger. Planning for scale production.
Singh told CNBC in an interview in April that A sample product will be ready to be sent to Volkswagen and the company’s other automotive partners for testing this year.
Next comes the “B Sample”, which is similar to its predecessor, but built on a prototype assembly line, with tooling similar but planned to be used by Quantumscape on its final full-speed production line. Smaller and simpler than machines.
“The purpose of a sample is for the customer to be able to verify that the battery can actually function as it should,” Singh said. “The purpose of the B sample is to take that battery and use it to build a test car.”
The final stage will be a C sample, a final prototype to be built for the full-scale assembly line. Singh said he currently expects QuantumScape to deliver Si samples in 2024 or 2025.
But even those first test cars won’t be ready for the road, Singh said. Instead, they will mark a significant milestone for the company and its automaker partners. Later, test cars built using those C sample batteries will be ready for production.
Those rounds of development, production and testing will require significant amounts of cash.
Singh said he is confident QuantumScape has enough cash — about $1.3 billion as of the end of March — to be able to distribute those C sample batteries to its automotive partners for testing. But it would need to raise more money to build a bigger factory to supply large-scale automakers.
Till then it can be a contest.
Toyota has said it is working to develop its own solid-state battery in-house, and at least one other start-up — Colorado-based solid powerwith the help of bmw And ford motor – on track Start building your own solid-state versions around the same time.
Making the amount of cash needed for a factory would be challenging in the current economic climate, but Singh thinks it won’t be difficult to raise money once investors have a chance to run a test vehicle powered by QuantumScape batteries.
“The good news about US capital markets is that if you can demonstrate that you have something real and that the market opportunity is really huge, there is a lot of capital available,” Singh said.