QuantumScape, PowerCo expand battery collaboration

QuantumScape (QS) announced it is expanding the strategic collaboration and licensing arrangement with PowerCo SE, the battery company of the Volkswagen Group (VWAGY), originally entered into in July 2024. The updated collaboration agreement is designed to accelerate the QSE-5 battery development pilot line in San Jose, marking a major step forward in the industrialization of solid-state battery technology. Under the terms, PowerCo will provide up to $131 million in new payments over the next two years upon the joint scale-up team achieving certain milestones. The first milestones have been achieved, and QS expects to begin receiving payments in 2025. These inflows are in addition to the previously announced $130 million that will be due to QS upon satisfactory technical progress and subsequent execution of the licensing agreement. The agreement enables PowerCo to engage earlier in QSE-5 production and automation efforts, advancing the ramp-up of QS’s pilot line. This is an essential step in scaling manufacturing and executing the technology transfer required to bring QSE-5 to global markets, while also enabling higher-volume prototype cell deliveries to PowerCo. This expansion will allow PowerCo the right under the licensing agreement to produce up to an additional 5 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of QSE-5-based cells annually, including for customers outside the Volkswagen Group, and the right to license certain future QS technology.