Quantumscape Moves A Step Forward With Its Solid State Battery

In an important development, QuantumScape just shipped its latest solid-state battery cell, dubber Alpha-2 to prospective customers. This is considered a massive stride for solid-state cell technology, demonstrating that the technology is close to ready for mass-deployment. QuantumScape has been widely credited with pushing the case for solid state batteries until now, although recently Chinese battery makers have seemingly not just caught up but gone one step ahead as well. Japanese auto major Toyota too has been working on building one soon.

Solid-state cells are considered a technology of the future and the next big step in battery development. The technology promises to allow for longer ranges, shorter charging times and none of the safety downsides associated with lithium-ion cells.

As of January, this year, QuantumScape’s solid state cells reached an important milestone confirmed by PowerCo: The cells significantly exceeded the requirements in the A-sample test and successfully completed more than 1000 charging cycles. For an electric car with a WLTP range of 500-600 kilometers, this corresponds to a total mileage of over half a million kilometers. At the same time, the cells barely aged during the tests and still had 95% of their rated capacities by the end of it, a massive overshoot of the industry standard 20% maximum capacity loss after 700 cycles. The tests were run for several months in PowerCo’s battery laboratories in Salzgitter. The cells were also able to meet the requirements for other test criteria such as fast-charging capability, safety and self-discharge.

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Commenting on the test results, QuantumScape founder and CEO Jagdeep Singh said, “These results from Volkswagen Group’s PowerCo testing make clear that QuantumScape’s anode less solid-state lithium-metal cells are capable of exceptional performance. While we have more work to do to bring this technology to market, we are not aware of any other automotive-format lithium-metal battery that has shown such high discharge energy retention over a comparable cycle count under similar conditions. We’re excited to be working closely with the Volkswagen Group and PowerCo to industrialize this technology and bring it to market as quickly as possible.”

Yash Singh

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