Thanks to a reader for sharing a link to a report from Yahoo! Finance which discusses a potentially revolutionary battery technology being developed by QuantumScape, a Silicon Valley company which is developing solid state batteries that are claimed to have a far superior performance in comparison to lithium-ion cells.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/battery-crushes-teslas-tech-unveils-160816090.html
QuantumScape’s largest investor is Volkswagen who have invested $100 million.
The article reports that the advantages of QuantumScape’s battery are faster charging times, higher energy density, and a reduction in risk for fire. “The company’s bold claims of recharging to 80% capacity in 15 minutes could transform the EV landscape, addressing one of the major concerns of EV consumers: charging time.”
In QuantumScape’s latest shareholder letter (https://www.quantumscape.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/QS-Shareholder-Letter-Q3-2023.pdf) they state that they shipped prototype “anode-free solid-state lithium metal cells” to prospective customers in Q4 2022.
They state:
“we can now share that our top-performing A0 prototype cell in one prospective customer’s battery testing labs achieved over 1,000 full cycle equivalents with over 95% discharge energy retention, using customer-specified test conditions of C/3 charge and C/2 discharge with our standard temperature and pressure conditions, and 100% depth of discharge”
Below is a Bloomberg interview with QuantumScape’s Co-Founder, CEO and Chairman Jagdeep Singh.
There are secret ingredients in these batteries, but Singh explains that the batteries can use an iron-based cathode (no anode is needed) and uses materials that are not needed in other kinds of batteries which reduces supply chain pressures. He says they are now scaling up production processes.