VW targets Tesla with long-range battery tech

Volkswagen Group could get access to advanced battery cells that have the potential to increase electric vehicle ranges by 80 percent as early as 2024, bolstering its efforts to surpass Tesla as segment leader.

Developed by the U.S. startup QuantumScape, the second-generation cell technology relies on a solid rather than liquid electrolyte and lithium metal instead of graphite for the anode. If it can be industrialized at scale, the two companies could collaborate to build a 20 gigawatt-hour factory, QuantumScape said.

In June 2018 the companies first agreed to form a joint venture, and VW announced this summer that it would increase its initial $100 million investment by an additional $200 million following a further finance round, giving it a stake of about 20 percent in QuantumScape. 

Jagdeep Singh, the CEO of QuantumScape and one of its three founders, said at a presentation this month that there were two stages of output planned for their production joint venture. 

“The first phase will be somewhat lower volume, on the order of 1 gWh, and the second phase will be 20 gWh, which is a real gigafactory scale production,” Singh said. 

The first cells could be produced in 2024 before industrialization begins in earnest by 2026. According to its plans, QuantumScape estimates that full capacity would be reached two years later.

Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess wants the automaker to eclipse Tesla in electric vehicle sales and has said that whichever automaker acquires second-generation cells first will have a major competitive advantage. 

“At our center of excellence in Salzgitter, Germany, we have successfully tested various QuantumScape cells. The results look very promising,“ Frank Blome, head of the battery cell business at Volkswagen Group Components, said in a presentation this month. 

A spokesman for VW clarified that the tests were carried out at a cell level rather than in an actual vehicle, and their results corresponded with those published by the company. Asked whether VW would have access to the full 20 gWh from a potential factory, the spokesman said, “We will utilize the available capacity from the joint venture to cover our own needs initially.”

QuantumScape says its cells are significantly safer and more compact than those employing existing lithium-ion chemistries, and vehicles equipped with them could easily drive farther than 700 km (435 miles) before being recharged in less than than 15 minutes. The company said achieving such performance metrics represented the “holy grail” of EV battery development. 

The California-based company estimates the energy density of its cell at around 1,000 watt hours per liter or more, as much as a 50 percent improvement over conventional cells, it says.

“If QuantumScape can get this technology into mass production, it holds the potential to transform the industry,” Stan Whittingham, a co-inventor of the lithium-ion battery and winner of the 2019 Nobel prize in chemistry, said in a statement published by the company.

If VW goes ahead with a plant for the QuantumScape technology, it would be the group’s second battery cell factory. It is already investing roughly 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) as part of a deal to build a 16 gWh cell plant with the Swedish company Northvolt. The plant is expected to come start production in late 2023. 

Across all brands, VW Group estimates its cell need for Europe alone will be 150 gWh by 2025. 

Blome, a member of the board of directors at QuantumScape, which was spun off in 2010 from Stanford University, said that years of researching various materials had yielded a proprietary “single-layer pouch cell” that is roughly the shape and width of a playing card.  

“Based on these test results, we believe that QuantumScape’s technology can open the gateway for solid state batteries that combine a higher energy density with fast charging capability,” he said.  

Over the coming 18 to 24 months, Singh aims to prove that his cell can be mass produced at automotive-grade specifications for longevity, stability and cost. Thus far, all attempts at engineering a solid-state lithium metal cell have failed to meet industry requirements.  

Singh said he would begin setting up supply contracts with companies that can provide the highly pure, electrochemically distilled lithium as well as the flexible yet robust ceramics needed for the separator. 

Since the lithium metal doubles both as an electrolyte and an anode, it eliminates the need for added graphite. This shrinks the size of the cell without any loss of energy, thus lending it a higher density. 

The separator is crucial as any damage could lead to a short circuit at a cellular level, potentially causing a fire in the battery. High charging rates and other forms of battery stress currently can cause lithium plating, an effect that creates microscopic needlelike formations that can puncture the separator.

“So much of the performance operating window that modern EVs have is really built around avoiding lithium plating,” said JB Straubel, a QuantumScape board director and a co-founder of Tesla who resigned as engineering chief last year. 

QuantumScape’s ceramic approach is not entirely unique. Daimler’s former Li-Tec subsidiary used separators made from the material and supplied by its partner at the time, the German chemical company Evonik, to build its cells in Kamenz. Production had to be shut down in December 2015, however, as demand for EVs at the time were not sufficient to sustain the high cost of the ceramic technology, former Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche said.