For decades, battery researchers have toiled away trying to crack the code for a new battery that could trump lithium-ion batteries — the technology that brought the electric vehicle industry to where it is today.
Now a decade-old startup backed by members of the tech investing elite and global auto giants says it has created working batteries that could lead to electric vehicles with significantly longer ranges, that can be produced at a lower cost, are safer to operate, boast longer lifespans and support faster charging.
MeetQuantumScape, a battery company that's been in stealth for a decade while its team has worked on developing what the industry calls a solid-state, lithium-metal battery. The solid-state moniker refers to the elimination of the liquid electrolyte, which in traditional batteries fills the cell and is used for charging and discharging.
该公司是由企业家缺口deep Singh (who created broadband infrastructure company Infinera) and Stanford scientists Fritz Prinz and Tim Holme. To date, QuantumScape has raised $1.5 billion in capital through a combination of funding from the likes of car giant Volkswagen and public funding bygoing public via特殊用途收购公司或SPAC。它在纽约证券交易所下的符号QS和上周的交易于每股42.50美元。
Early investors include Breakthrough Energy Ventures — formed by tech titans Bill Gates, John Doerr and Vinod Khosla — as well as Lightspeed Ventures. Tesla's former CTO, JB Straubel, sits on the company's board, as does Doerr.
The secret sauce
是什么让量子展的电池保持这种承诺？传统电池具有正电极，称为阴极和称为阳极的负电极。在锂离子电池中，阴极倾向于是锂金属氧化物，并且阳极倾向于石墨制成。薄，多孔隔板保持两个电极以防止电气短路，液体电解质移动锂离子。
Quantumsape的电池可以使用行业标准的混合金属阴极，但该公司开发了独特的固体陶瓷分离器。电池在没有阳极的情况下制造，没有电解质，该公司所说的是更紧凑，更能密度和更安全的操作。
When the QuantumScape battery is charged and discharged, the lithium metal moves through the separator and creates a thin layer of a lithium-metal anode. The secret sauce is in the chemical composition and manufacturing process of the separator. When I questioned QuantumSpace's Singh about the material of the separator, he described it as the company's trade secret.
那么这些创新如何看待电动车？Quantumscape表示，与当今EV所需的潜在小时加上充电时间相比，使用电池的汽车可以在仅15分钟内收取80％的容量。该公司表示，具有量子常量电池的汽车也可能比使用当今锂离子电池的速度更长80％。
"For the first time, it's not the battery that's the limitation," for EVs, Singh said.
For the first time, it's not the battery that's the limitation.
Fifteen-minute charge times and many hundreds — or even thousands — of miles on a charge would make EVs far more competitive with internal combustion vehicles and the swift gas station refueling experience.
The future of solid-state batteries
QuantumScape is making noise this week because it's showing off performance data. The company says this is the first time that a solid-state battery maker has shown that its battery works in real-world conditions. It'll talk more about the details of the performance results with avirtual panelthis morning featuring a who's who of battery experts like former Tesla CTO Straubel, Nobel Prize winner Stan Wittingham, and Paul Albertus, former head of the US DOE ARPA-E IONCS solid-state battery program.
Don't expect the company's battery to revolutionize EVs overnight. Despite 10 years in development, QuantumScape is still far from the finish line.
The company still has to create a factory to produce the batteries at a commercial scale, and then it will have to go through a year of pilot testing with automakers such as Volkswagen. QuantumScape and Volkswagen have created a 50/50 joint venture to produce the first battery factory.
"It'll be 2024 before you'll see cars with these batteries in them," Singh said.
Many battery startups have faltered through the so-called "valley of death" between a viable technology and the funds needed to scale the tech to a commercial level.
But four years is also not much longer for a team that's been heads down for a decade. "What we didn't realize is how much work it would be. From this point on it's all about execution," Singh said.
At the same time over the next four years, lithium-ion batteries also will drop in cost and increase in energy density and keep making EVs cheaper and more competitive with gas cars.
虽然Quantumscape可以利用这些创新（因为它使用了一些标准Li-Ion Tech），但它也与锂离子电池竞争，这是电动汽车行业中最重要的技术开发。
