very importantly, this mentions it's a "encouraging proof of concept", the original article made it seem as if this was going to hit the shelves next month.
It's a Problem I see with a lot of blogspam articles - when it comes to battery tech, cures for $disease, discovery of "earth-like" planets, etc - they all make it look like they're about to hit shelves. But more often than not it's only in laboratory conditions, it's extrapolating a "what if" from a scientific paper, commercially unviable, or even straight up grifts trying to sell a patent or trying to get bought out by a big company like Tesla.
I wish I could filter these very hypothetical links from HN somehow. At least the comments will point out the shared links are not the source and will link to better resources.
That's why I generally don't trust any news on these topics unless very thoroughly verified.
@ everyone on these topics: Curb your enthusiasm. It's probably not going to happen. All of these "breakthroughs" have so far had one or more deal breaking down sides.
I think we will be seeing more of this sort of news, I wondered how some university bods have got on since their last expose in the media with their endeavours because they had solved the fast charging heat problem which turns batteries into plastic explosives. Last I heard they were trying to get the process commercialised in a factory setting.
So I think we will be seeing more of this type of news now, which is good because who doesn't like the acceleration of electric motors in vehicles if the weight can be kept down?
I've been following Quantumscape for a while. The reason they come up in conversations about solid state batteries a lot is because they regularly report on where they are as a company and because they are quite a bit further than a proof of concept. That's what they had a few years ago. At this point they are scaling the engineering of increasingly more complex battery samples and testing the hell out of those.
Basically, they've been ramping up sample production for some time and have shipped battery samples to customers like Volkswagen who have independently verified their claims and are a major investor. In the last year they've upped the ambition level in terms of the number of layers in the battery, the number of charging cycles under conditions that would stress any battery, etc. They've been reporting steady progress every few months more or less on the previously announced schedule that they were planning to do so.
Their near future plans involve a small test factory that is due to come online next year with small numbers of vehicles on the road by 2024/2025 time frame. Realistically volume production of this would not kick off until closer to the end of this decade. They've actually done a great job of managing expectations around what they do.
Full disclosure: I bought some stock last year in this company and it dropped about 50% in value since then. So, not great. I'm holding onto the shares because I believe they are actually under valued currently. To me it looks like they have a high chance of getting to the market first with a working product that should deliver impressive safety, energy density, and charging speeds. I don't know of other solid state battery companies that are that close to having a market ready product. They have customers lining up (several major car brands). A healthy amount of liquidity to build factories and do more testing. And there's going to be a market for their batteries if they manage to ship working products. So far, everything I've heard about this company suggests that things are proceeding more or less as planned and that they remain on track to do hit their targets over the next few years. But I may have to wait a few years before that translates into the massive share price increase I'm expecting. It's a gamble and I don't recommend others to gamble. But I feel good about this one.
Sandy Munro interviewed the CEO a few months ago on his Youtube channel. Worth a watch.
I can be proven wrong, but I suspect that solid state won't be price viable for a long time.
LFP and sodium ion chemistries are improving to an economic sweet spot that solid state may not be able to compete in without a lot of scaling and risk.
LFP at 230-260 wh/kg will probably be able to handle all the Tesla ranges of 300-400 mile packs, especially given their reduced need for heat management so their cell-to-pack densities are higher.
Sodium Ion at 150-200 wh/kg will be even cheaper than LFP, and can probably handle the 200-300 mile range EV, which will probably handle 90% of consumer transport in high density cities in China, India, Europe, Latin America, and other places.
Solid State will then be competing for high-end applications (well, there is still semis/heavy transport, but LFP may be good enough for that too). I don't think it is good enough for air transport. Li-S may beat it out economically as well.
But options are always good, and there will be lots of room for different flavors of batteries.
Thank you both for this detailed summary and declaration of your bias.
"Near future plans involving a small test factory" means they're about 10 steps further along than most articles about new battery tech. There's still another 10 steps to go before it affects my life though (one measure of "volume production").
Seems like you have been 'scamed' by the 'solid state' hype.
What matters is what the price is for most applications. And when you are actually competing on specs, silicon additives to current anodes batteries can achieve many of the same specs.
And silicon additives can easily be added to existing giga-factories. While QS will need to invest 10s of billions if they want to match that.
In my opinion by 2028 existing battery factories will spit out batteries with the specs QS claims at a lower price.
Whenever a stock goes 10x, it starts with a lot of people that say that will never happen. Including most of the stock market. Hence the low valuation and the potential for that to change. At the same time, investors like Volkswagen that know a thing or two about the market seem to be happy to poor in lots of money to Quantumscape. The market and VW can't both be right. One of them is probably very wrong.
My bet last year was that the stock will go up and I don't think I'm being completely irrational. But I'll readily admit to this being somewhat of a gamble.
Your analysis merely shows that you don't see the value of a battery with roughly 2x the energy density, 2x the charging times, that is also a bit safer to use. I don't think it's going to be that easy for other companies to simply catch up without a lot of R&D. They'll want to but it's not exactly easy. Also, I think 2x is a really conservative lower bound. People have been talking higher factors for some of the solutions in this space. 2x is a nice starting point though. But that might turn into a 3x or a 4x over time.
Existing battery factories won't magically turn into factories for entirely different batteries. That's not how it works generally. Certainly not by 2028. Most of the battery factories currently being built will be producing the batteries that they are being built for, for years to come. Battery factories are a big capital expense and you don't just retire them. There won't be any shortage of demand and they'll want to get some return on their investments.
Most electrical cars produced by the end of this decade will be built in factories that don't exist yet. The projected growth is more or less exponentially and that production capacity simply does not exist yet. There will likely be more capacity added in the last two years of this decade than exists now, in total.
Production volumes will likely quadruple or quintuple in that timespan. About 2x every few years. That's the opportunity for Quantumscape. They might be involved with building a lot of those new factories long term. If they have something competitive by 2024 and get some of the companies they currently have agreements with to actually commit to using their tech, things could get lucrative. To hit mass production by 2030, the tech needed needs to be feasible a few years ahead of that time. So, 2024 is a good time for Quantumscape to hit the market early with a working battery. It will be interesting to see how much real competition they will have by then. My guess is that it will be too early for most others.
VW invested before they went public and they likely got in a much lower cost and later added on top but received not just stock but also partnership agreements. And the investment for a company like VW isn't that big. A company the size of VW can take such risks.
VW has invested far more and far more aggressively in Northvolt for example.
> Your analysis merely shows that you don't see the value of a battery with roughly 2x the energy density, 2x the charging times
No I question that when they can produce these batteries in relevant volume that their advantage will be nearly as big.
And far more important is actually price. Manufactures are INCREDIBLY price sensitive. There might be some premium for extra performance but they are far smaller then most people imagine.
> I don't think it's going to be that easy for other companies to simply catch up without a lot of R&D.
What I am telling you that there is MASSIVE amounts of R&D going into silicon. Like 10x more then Lithium anodes.
Both on individual company level and huge amounts of startups as well.
> Existing battery factories won't magically turn into factories for entirely different batteries.
Actually, yes they will depending on your definition of 'new'. There are 30+ year old battery factories still operating with newer chemistry.
Most silicon startups and processes are design according to specification to be valid feed stock for typical Li-Ion production.
It is totally viable for existing factories to switch to very, very different anodes and cathodes.
Actually, yes they will depending on your definition of 'new'. There are 30+ year old battery factories still operating with newer chemistry.
This is not universally true. Tesla for example is doing its own thing for example with dry electrodes, and are far less compatible.
> Most electrical cars produced by the end of this decade will be built in factories that don't exist yet.
Most EV will produced in factories that are currently in advanced planning, literally 99% of those will not be lithium metal anode factories.
> That's the opportunity for Quantumscape.
I'm not denying that they have an opportunity. But company with huge tech, market risk and price risk is a very risky investment. They have not made profit and wont make it for many more years.
Their valuation now is of course far more reasonable then when I originally made this argument, but its still rather high for me. But I would have to spend more time on analyzing to say what I think they are worth.
I like to ask, how many years of highly successful execution is required to for the company be a solid self standing company. For QS this is likely about 8-10 years.
> If they have something competitive by 2024
They wont. By then they are in sample production of a tiny factory. You massively underestimate how much time and effort it will require to build a real modern mass production facility that can directly compete to go into modern car production line.
If they are lucky by 2025 one of their partners will make some sample luxury cars with their batteries in them. Maybe in 2026-2027 some new luxury car will actually go into series production with these.
Yes. But there are literally 50-100 currently in advanced planning stages. All those factories, say 5 years back and in the next 7 years will add up to 100-200 billion in investment and these factories will likely continue to run for decades. Every single one of those factories is build for current Li-Ion batteries.
Feeding these hungry factories with improving cathode and anode materials over time is the primary vector for industry wide density improvement the next 15+ years.
QS will plan to build a gaga-factory going forward, but what they have currently planned is still very small compared to the truly insane traditional factories that are now in planning. Companies are planning single factories that can drop 100GWh per year.
QS in the late 2020s hope to sell a very niche high end product that requires gigantic investment to scale and has massive competition.
What do you mean with 'this'? You mean silicon anodes ad additives?
Just to start with, silicon has almost the a very high theoretical potential for an anode. Almost as high as lithium metal.
Its not new, current a standard Tesla likely already have 5% silicon oxide in the anode. But to compete with what QS is planning you will needed higher % and likely a different form of silicon.
Every large battery is working on silicon, it makes the battery cheaper and increases density. There are also a huge number of silicon startups.
One example that is comparable to QS is Sila Nanotechnology. silanano.com
Tesla is investing massively in silicon as well. They bought a number startups and doing a lot of development.
I would suggest this playlist (just the silicon parts if you want):
On the same channel you can also find videos on QuantumScape that are very well researched.
But just to be clear, I don't think its a 'scam'. I just think their valuation went insane for a company many years away from actually selling anything and huge investments to be made with large tech risk.
Feel similarly abt QS, lot of potential, but not yet actualized, and valuation ahead of itself - and, damn, I want to get my hands on some of their solid state batteries at 500Wh/kg!
