The battery company announced at a recent press conference that it will go public through a reverse merger with the Kensington Capital Acquisition Company. The company's corporate valuation is approximately $3.3 billion. Kensington is a special purpose acquisition company that is the same type of shell company used by other automotive startups (including Nikola, Fisker, and Canoo) for listing in recent months.
QuantumScape was founded in 2010 and is one of several companies seeking to commercialize solid-state battery technology. It is so named because its batteries use solid-state electrolytes instead of the liquids currently used in the chemistry of lithium-ion batteries.
QuantumScape is developing a lithium metal battery whose ceramic electrolyte is non-flammable and safer than traditional liquid electrolytes. The company claims that its lithium metal anode can be charged 80% in 15 minutes, eliminating the lithium diffusion defects in traditional anodes and having a higher energy density than lithium-ion batteries.
Volkswagen has been cooperating with QuantumScape since 2012 and announced an additional US$200 million in investment in June this year. For many years, the company has been proving its strength to Volkswagen, and Volkswagen is considering putting some of its technology into production, as far back as 2015.
Recently, Volkswagen said that by 2025 it will provide solid-state batteries for some cars on a limited basis. But Volkswagen did not specify that they will come from QuantumScape. Among other automakers, Toyota said its solid-state battery vehicles may be launched as early as 2025. Earlier this year, a Toyota executive said that the prototype is undergoing testing.
However, Toyota and Tesla's long-term partner Panasonic is less optimistic about the promotion of solid-state battery technology. In 2018, the CEO of Panasonic North America stated that mass production of solid-state batteries will take at least 10 years.