特斯拉电池细节
Early this month, QuantumScape, an ultra-secretive, $4.3 billion battery startup, startled the battery and electric vehicle communities with an announcement: In the fourth quarter, it would go public on the New York Stock Exchange. If everything went right, there would be the prospect of substantial profit for investors including VW and Bill Gates on some $500 million in bets on the company. That was on top of the transformation that the IPO would help bring about in the mass commercialization of EVs.
Ë阿尔利这个月，QuantumScape，超隐秘，$ 4.3十亿电池启动时，惊动了电池和电动车社区发布一条消息：在第四季度，它会去公众在纽约证券交易所上市。 如果一切顺利的话，包括大众和比尔·盖茨在内的投资者将有大量获利的赌注，押注公司约5亿美元。 这是首次公开募股将有助于电动汽车大规模商业化的转变的基础。
The surprising thing was that the whole thing rested on a still-uncertain matter: A blockbuster assertion by QuantumScape, not verified by outside scientists, that it was on a short path to a solid state EV battery using pure metallic lithium, a prized material that has been the subject of a decades-long global technology race.
令人惊讶的THI体中是整个事情搁在一个仍然不确定物质：由QuantumScape，A大片断言并不是由外界的科学家验证，这是使用纯金属锂为固态EV电池短路径上，珍贵几十年来一直是全球技术竞赛主题的材料。
Now, QuantumScape was out with a slide deck that said its battery would propel a mass-market EV about 90% further than conventional lithium ion, charge up in a lightning fast 15 minutes, and cost less than vehicles with current batteries.
现在，QuantumScape配备了一个滑行甲板，它说它的电池将比传统的锂离子电池推动大众市场电动车的速度提高约90％，在闪电般的15分钟内即可充电，并且成本比使用现有电池的车辆便宜。
To carry out the IPO, QuantumScape said it would use an increasingly fashionable financial arrangement called a SPAC, a fast-lane strategy that speeds a listing while avoiding the usual disclosure requirements. The data-skinny approach was fully in keeping with QuantumScape’s long reputation for obsessive stealthiness, and did not necessarily imply anything sketchy. But it did force experts, not to mention outside investors and everyone else, to more or less simply trust QuantumScape and its new partner, an already-listed shell company called Kensington Capital Acquisition Corp., with which, in line with the rules of SPACs, it would merge. Wall Street, accustomed to the IPOs of no-revenue startups, seemed unfazed to encounter a company with no evidence of revenue or a product, and doubled Kensington’s share price September 3, the day of the announcement.
为了进行首次公开募股，QuantumScape表示将使用一种越来越流行的财务安排，称为SPAC ，这是一种快速通道策略，可以加快上市速度，同时避免通常的披露要求。 数据App.svelte方法完全符合QuantumScape在强迫症隐身方面的长期声誉，并不一定意味着有任何粗略的想法。 但这确实迫使专家(更不用说外部投资者和其他所有人)或多或少简单地信任QuantumScape及其新合作伙伴，这是一家已经上市的空壳公司，名为Kensington Capital Acquisition Corp.，符合SPAC的规定。 ，它将合并。 习惯于无收入创业公司的IPO的华尔街似乎并不感到惊讶，因为它遇到一家没有收入或产品证据的公司，并且在公告当天9月3日将肯辛顿的股价翻了一番。
But blind trust is a considerable ask of EV and battery companies. In 1883, Thomas Edison famously called the battery business a preserve of “stock swindlers,” and the last decade had been a time of typically tall claims and outright fraud by purveyors of sleek EV concept cars and purportedly groundbreaking batteries to power them. Now, QuantumScape was out with a slide deck that said its battery would propel a mass-market EV about 90% further than conventional lithium ion, charge up in a lightning-fast 15 minutes, and cost less than vehicles with current batteries. VW, QuantumScape said, planned to equip some of its vehicles with the battery by 2025.
但是对电动汽车和电池公司来说，盲目信任是一个很大的问题。 1883年，托马斯·爱迪生( Thomas Edison)著名地称电池行业为“骗子”，而在过去的十年中，时尚的EV概念车和据称开创性的电池为它们供电的制造商通常提出很高的要求和彻底的欺诈行为。 现在，QuantumScape配备了一个滑动甲板，它说它的电池将比传统的锂离子电池推动大众市场电动车的速度提高约90％，在闪电般的15分钟内即可充电，并且成本比装有当前电池的车辆要低。 QuantumScape表示，大众计划到2025年为其部分车辆配备电池。
These were descriptions of a revolutionary battery with an unusually fast deployment. Could QuantumScape and VW genuinely pull this off?
这些是部署速度异常快的革命性电池的描述。 QuantumScape和大众能否真正做到这一点？
In the subsequent weeks, the battery and EV communities have expressed their doubts. Against an extremely short timeline, profound challenges appeared to remain in the non-trivial transformation of an early-stage, wholly experimental battery system into a commercial-scale factory. Neither in a hurricane of online chatter nor in my own conversations with academic, industry, and consulting experts did anyone express suspicion that QuantumScape fell into the camp that Edison assailed — companies that were merely “a mechanism for swindling the public.” Still, none believed the company could meet its stated deadline of getting into VW’s 2025 EVs. There was particular unease that QuantumScape had disclosed no data that would allow anyone to assess its claims, especially since such secrecy had been a hallmark of the last decade’s most notorious battery fabulists.
在随后的几周中，电池和电动汽车界表示怀疑。 在非常短的时间范围内，将早期的，完全实验性的电池系统无偿转变为商业规模的工厂似乎仍然面临着巨大的挑战。 无论是在网上风风雨雨中，还是在我自己与学术界，行业和咨询专家的谈话中，都没有人怀疑QuantumScape落入了爱迪生的阵营，这些公司仅仅是“一种欺骗公众的机制”。 不过，没有人相信该公司能够按规定的期限完成大众2025年电动汽车的开发。 特别令人不安的是，QuantumScape没有披露任何数据可以让任何人评估其主张，特别是因为这种保密性是过去十年来最臭名昭著的电池专家的标志。
In a chase to carve out a dominant position as combustion gradually becomes a relic of the 20th and early 21st centuries, the giant automakers have announced plans to field scores of EVs over the next five years.
为了逐步占据主导地位，随着燃烧逐渐成为20世纪和21世纪初的遗迹，这家巨型汽车制造商宣布了计划在未来五年内推出数十款电动汽车。
Doug Campbell, CEO of Solid Power, a leading QuantumScape competitor backed by BMW, Ford and Hyundai, suggested in defense of his own startup that the jury was still out as to who would ultimately put the first metallic lithium-powered EVs on the road — QuantumScape, his own company, or someone else. Consider Toyota, which, too, has said it expects to deploy a metallic lithium battery-powered car by 2025, though it still needs to bring down the cost. “How did they beat us to the punch?” Campbell responded when I asked him whether he had been outdone by QuantumScape. “Did they beat us to the punch on a creative financing scheme? [But that’s] a race we didn’t even enter.”
在宝马，福特和现代的支持下，Solid Power的首席执行官道格·坎贝尔(Doug Campbell)是领先的QuantumScape竞争对手，在为自己的初创公司辩护时表示，对于谁最终将首款金属锂动力电动汽车投入使用尚无定论- QuantumScape，他自己的公司或其他人。 以丰田为例，丰田也表示希望在2025年前部署一款金属锂电池驱动的汽车，尽管它仍需要降低成本。 “他们是如何击败我们的？” 当我问他是否被QuantumScape超越时，坎贝尔做出了回应。 “他们是否在创意融资计划方面击败了我们？ [但是那是我们什至没有参加的比赛。“
At once, EVs and futuristic batteries are all the rage. Since 2008, Elon Musk and his EV company, Tesla, have had the field largely to themselves. And with his webcast “Battery Day” tomorrow in Fremont, California, Musk intends to demonstrate he is still the biggest game in town.
同时，电动汽车和未来的电池都风靡一时。 自2008年以来，埃隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)和他的电动汽车公司特斯拉(Tesla)在很大程度上已经占据了这一领域。 明天在加利福尼亚州弗里蒙特举行的网络广播“电池日”上，马斯克打算证明他仍然是全市最大的比赛。
But, pushed out of their lethargy by Tesla’s phenomenal success, a slew of rivals are breathing down Musk’s neck. In a chase to carve out a dominant position as combustion gradually becomes a relic of the 20th and early 21st centuries, the giant automakers have announced plans to field scores of EVs over the next five years. Small EV and battery startups have announced similar plans, and are the object not of one SPAC, but at least 10, all but one of which have almost no revenue, yet combined, boast an average valuation of $1.8 billion, well into unicorn stature. It’s impossible to know who will win or even survive the EV race, but a sign of discomfort among the leading U.S. automakers is their flight to safety in partnerships with some of the startups: VW and QuantumScape; Ford and Rivian, a luxury pickup truck maker; GM and Nikola, another truck company that just went public.
但是，由于特斯拉的非凡成就，他们的嗜睡被驱散了，许多竞争对手在马斯克的脖子上喘不过气来。 为了逐步占据主导地位，随着燃烧逐渐成为20世纪和21世纪初的遗迹，这家巨型汽车制造商宣布了计划在未来五年内推出数十款电动汽车。 小型电动汽车和电池初创公司也宣布了类似的计划，它们不是一个SPAC的目标，而是至少10个，但其中一个几乎都没有收入，但加起来却没有，其平均估值达到18亿美元，完全达到了独角兽的地位。 不可能知道谁会赢得甚至在电动汽车竞赛中幸存下来，但是美国领先的汽车制造商不满的迹象是，他们与一些初创公司(大众汽车和QuantumScape)合作，走向安全。 福特和Rivian，豪华皮卡车制造商； 通用汽车和另一家刚刚上市的卡车公司尼古拉。
Yet it is the battery race that is perhaps the most consequential. The battery accounts for a third to half the cost of an EV, making continuous advances in energy density and cost crucial if your aim is to make the vehicles a mainstream product. Almost every EV on the planet is powered by workhorse lithium-ion batteries. Though they were discovered four decades ago at Oxford University, they are still the most advanced batteries in commercial use. In fact, lithium ion is on the cusp of a pivotal breakthrough: taking EVs across a crucial consumer barrier by giving them cost parity with conventional gasoline-propelled vehicles. If their price is the same as combustion, EV sales may surge in popular categories like crossover SUVs and pickups.
然而，最有可能的是电池竞赛。 电池仅占电动汽车成本的三分之一至一半，如果您的目标是使车辆成为主流产品，那么使能量密度和成本不断提高至关重要。 星球上几乎所有的电动汽车都由主力锂离子电池供电。 尽管它们是四十年前在牛津大学发现的，但它们仍然是商业用途中最先进的电池。 实际上，锂离子电池正处于关键性突破的风口浪尖：通过使电动汽车与传统汽油驱动的汽车具有同等的价格，使电动汽车跨越关键的消费者壁垒。 如果它们的价格与燃烧价格相同，则电动汽车的销量可能会在跨界SUV和皮卡等热门类别中激增。
But doubt remains as to how big EVs will truly become in a global industry that sold 90 million new vehicles in 2019. By comparison, about 2.1 million electric cars were sold around the world last year, just 2.3% of the total. To rack up larger numbers, automakers need to crack the mid-priced market, in which vehicle prices are below $30,000. Which explains the frenzy to identify and find the next battery after lithium-ion, something that can make EVs much, much cheaper: a metallic lithium-based battery.
但是，对于在2019年售出9000万辆新车的全球产业中，真正的大型电动汽车仍将存在疑问。相比之下，去年全球售出约210万辆电动汽车，仅占总数的2.3％。 为了增加销量，汽车制造商需要打入中等价格市场，在这个市场中，汽车价格低于30,000美元。 这就解释了在锂离子电池之后识别和寻找下一个电池的狂热，这会使电动汽车便宜得多：金属锂基电池。
The quest to build an EV battery around pure lithium metal goes back to its elemental nature: It is the lightest metal on the periodic table, and thus can be stuffed in large amounts into a small and mobile battery, storing much energy while not weighing down the product it is powering. But it has been a dangerous pursuit because lithium metal is highly reactive with moisture, making it explosive. Over the last decade, lithium-ion batteries have caught fire aboard Boeings, in Samsung smartphones, and in Tesla S’s. They have also fatally short-circuited when growths called dendrites allowed their positive and negative electrodes to come into contact with one another. For three decades, the U.S. Energy Department has spent tens of millions of dollars in grants in an attempt to resolve these flaws and allow for the creation of a commercial metallic lithium battery that would open up the American EV mass market.
围绕纯锂金属制造EV电池的要求可追溯到其元素性质：它是元素周期表上最轻的金属，因此可以大量装入小型且可移动的电池中，从而在不降低重量的情况下存储大量能量它正在供电的产品。 但这是一个危险的追求，因为锂金属与水分具有很高的React性，使其具有爆炸性。 在过去的十年中，锂离子电池在波音，三星智能手机和特斯拉S上引起了轰动。 当所谓的树枝状晶体的生长使它们的正负电极相互接触时，它们也会致命地短路。 三十年来，美国能源部已经花费了数千万美元的赠款，以试图解决这些缺陷，并允许制造商业金属锂电池，这将打开美国电动汽车的大众市场。
The battery accounts for a third to half the cost of an EV, making continuous advances in energy density and cost crucial if your aim is to make the vehicles a mainstream product.
电池仅占电动汽车成本的三分之一至一半，如果您的目标是使车辆成为主流产品，那么使能量密度和成本不断提高至关重要。
The leading solution researchers have been attempting is a “solid state” battery. The idea has been to do away with liquid electrolyte, the mediation layer of the battery that lies between the two electrodes, and replace it with a non-flammable solid. That would get rid of the flammability problem. But solid electrolyte has its own technical issues, in particular its susceptibility to dendrites, the spiky growths that short-circuit batteries.
研究人员一直在尝试的领先解决方案是“固态”电池。 想法是消除液态电解质，即位于两个电极之间的电池中介层，并用不燃固体代替。 那将消除可燃性问题。 但是固体电解质有其自身的技术问题，特别是其对树枝状晶体的敏感性，即使电池短路的尖峰增长。
In 2010, Jack Vaughey, a chemist at Argonne National Laboratory, outside Chicago, won a three-year Energy Department grant to take on the lithium metal conundrum. The key to making lithium metal work, Vaughey knew, was depositing it with glassy smoothness on the surface of the copper current collector, with no bumps, undulations, or defects of any sort. If there were any such imperfections, they were bound to grow into fatal dendrites. Not just that, but the lithium had to be able to shuttle back and forth during the battery’s charge and discharge cycle, and each time, again and again, deposit flat on the current collector. It could leave no crinkles, wrinkles, lines, or puckers. But that’s what happened anyway, said David Schroeder, chief technology officer at Volta Energy Technologies, a battery investment firm outside of Chicago, who worked with Vaughey on the project: “It was not smooth, but a mess,” Schroeder said. In 2013, the project ended in failure.
2010年，位于芝加哥以外的阿贡国家实验室的化学家杰克·沃伊(Jack Vaughey)赢得了能源部的三年资助，以应对锂金属难题。 Vaughey知道，使锂金属起作用的关键是将其以玻璃状光滑度沉积在铜集电器的表面上，而没有任何颠簸，起伏或任何类型的缺陷。 如果存在任何此类缺陷，它们必定会长成致命的树突。 不仅如此，锂还必须能够在电池的充电和放电周期中来回穿梭，并且每次一次又一次地在集电器上沉积。 它不会留下任何皱纹，皱纹，线条或褶皱。 但这就是发生的事情 芝加哥以外的电池投资公司Volta Energy Technologies的首席技术官David Schroeder说，他与Vaughey合作进行了该项目：“这并不顺利，但一团糟。” Schroeder说。 2013年，该项目以失败告终。
About that time, QuantumScape was beginning its own stab at the metallic lithium challenge. The company had been formed three years earlier by a Stanford professor named Fritz Prinz, one of his doctoral students, Tim Holme, and Jagdeep Singh, a well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur, who would be CEO. Singh was preternaturally skilled at fund-raising, and rapidly attracted an initial $23 million in investment from Kleiner’s John Doerr and Vinod Khosla, two of Silicon Valley’s most prominent venture capitalists. More rounds followed until the company had amassed a war chest of $200 million in VC funding and another $300 million from VW. QuantumScape had become probably the richest battery startup in the country, a Goliath that hired what some called the greatest concentration of top battery talent in any one place anywhere.
大约在那个时候，QuantumScape开始应对金属锂挑战。 该公司由三年前的斯坦福大学教授弗里茨·普林茨(Fritz Prinz)创立，他的博士生之一蒂姆·霍姆(Tim Holme)和著名的硅谷企业家贾格迪普·辛格(Jagdeep Singh)将担任首席执行官。 辛格非常擅长筹集资金，并Swift吸引了硅谷最著名的两位风险投资家克莱因(Kleiner)的约翰·多尔(John Doerr)和维诺德·科斯拉(Vinod Khosla)最初的2300万美元投资。 随后又进行了几轮融资，直到该公司积累了2亿美元的风险投资资金，以及来自大众的3亿美元资金。 QuantumScape可能已成为美国最富有的电池创业公司，这是Goliath公司，它雇用了任何人所谓的最大的顶级电池人才集中地，在任何地方。
But by this summer, when SPAC mania had fully struck the U.S. EV and battery space, QuantumScape had amassed at least 18 patents for LLZO.
但是到了今年夏天，当SPAC狂热席卷美国电动汽车和电池领域时，QuantumScape已为LLZO积累了至少18项专利。
In 2014, QuantumScape filed the first of a long series of patents on a new material that promised to finally resolve many of the obstacles to a working metallic lithium-based battery. Invented around 2007 by a German chemist named Werner Weppner, a professor at Christian-Albrechts University, the material was known by its chemical acronym, LLZO. Argonne’s Vaughey had himself worked with Weppner’s invention as part of his own project. LLZO was attracting a slew of interest, in part because, unlike most solid state electrolytes, it did not disintegrate when it came into contact with metallic lithium. Yet Vaughey and Schroeder found another annoying problem with it: When the battery began to cycle, the metallic lithium burrowed, atom by atom, underneath and between the mass of tiny grains that made up the LLZO. And once wedged in there, the atoms eventually broke through the material and shorted the battery.
2014年，QuantumScape申请了新材料的一系列长期专利中的第一个，该专利有望最终解决工作中的金属锂基电池的许多障碍。 这种材料是由德国化学家Werner Weppner于2007年左右发明的，该化学家是Christian-Albrechts大学的一名教授，该材料的化学首字母缩写LLZO闻名于世。 Argonne的Vaughey自己曾将Weppner的发明与自己的项目合作。 LLZO引起了人们的广泛兴趣，部分原因是与大多数固态电解质不同，LLZO与金属锂接触时不会崩解。 然而，沃伊和施罗德发现了另一个烦人的问题：当电池开始循环时，金属锂在构成LLZO的细小晶粒的下方和之间逐个原子钻探。 一旦楔入其中，原子最终会穿透材料并使电池短路。
Given QuantumScape’s predilection for secrecy, it’s not known how it went about tackling the show-stopping problems of maintaining an ultra-smooth lithium metal surface cycle after cycle, and preventing the lithium from burrowing and slicing through the LLZO. (In fact, we don’t know for a fact that LLZO is QuantumScape’s solution, only that that’s the consensus of the battery community, derived from studying the company’s patent portfolio.) But by this summer, when SPAC mania had fully struck the U.S. EV and battery space, QuantumScape had amassed at least 18 patents for LLZO. And, while leaving out the details, Jagdeep Singh, the QuantumScape CEO, told me that his team had worked out “hundreds” of bugs, and finally emerged with a working metallic lithium battery — at least at small scale.
鉴于QuantumScape偏爱保密，因此尚不知道如何解决制止停顿的问题，即维持循环后的超光滑锂金属表面循环，并防止锂通过LLZO挖洞和切片。 (事实上，我们不知道LLZO是QuantumScape的解决方案，只是那是电池界的共识，源于对公司专利组合的研究。)但是到了今年夏天，SPAC狂潮席卷了美国。电动汽车和电池空间，QuantumScape已为LLZO积累了至少18项专利。 而且，尽管省略了细节，但QuantumScape首席执行官Jagdeep Singh告诉我，他的团队已经解决了“数百”个错误，并最终出现了至少可以小规模工作的金属锂电池。
The last decade has been both triumphant and harsh on batteries. The 2011 Nissan Leaf went 73 miles on a single charge; today’s altogether affordable Chevy Bolt goes 259, and the standard is quickly growing to a previously unthinkable 300 miles and more. The under-appreciated batteries in these cars meet other daunting metrics, such as allowing the vehicles to accelerate quickly — to tap and use a lot of the stored energy instantly — and to do so safely, avoiding fires or explosions. In addition, the cost of newer batteries has plunged, allowing for cheaper and cheaper EVs.
在过去的十年中，电池既胜利又苛刻。 2011年日产聆风一次充电行驶了73英里； 如今，雪佛兰Bolt的价格已经达到了259，而该标准正在Swift发展到以前无法想象的300英里甚至更多。 这些汽车中未被充分利用的电池还满足其他令人生畏的指标，例如允许车辆快速加速-立即挖掘并使用大量存储的能量-并安全地这样做，避免起火或爆炸。 此外，新型电池的价格已经暴跌，从而使电动汽车越来越便宜。
When members of the battery community express frustration over the lack of any data from QuantumScape corroborating its claims, it is the experience of Envia and Sakti3 that is often on their minds.
当电池社区的成员对QuantumScape缺乏任何数据来证实其说法感到沮丧时，他们常常会想到Envia和Sakti3的经历。
Along the way, there have also been black eyes. In 2012, Envia, a small Silicon Valley startup, had accomplished an extraordinary feat by beating out established companies for a four-year contract to produce the 200-mile battery for GM’s coming flagship electric Bolt. Just months later, though, the deal fell apart when it turned out that Envia had been exaggerating about its battery’s performance and even its role in producing it. LG, the South Korean giant, ended up providing the battery for GM, and the name Envia became emblematic for the field’s chicanery. In 2015, Michigan-based Sakti3, one of the most secretive battery startups of its age, sold itself to Dyson, the vacuum cleaner company, for $90 million amid reports that it had been materially inflating its achievements. Over the next four years, Dyson relinquished Sakt3’s core patents, let Sakt3 CEO Ann Marie Sastry leave the company, canceled its battery program that had been based around the acquisition, and finally, after $600 million in spending, cut the EV program entirely. In an announcement last evening, the founder of Nikola, GM’s electric truck partner, resigned amid reports that the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department are probing allegations that it misled investors by exaggerating its technology claims.
一路上，还出现了黑眼睛。 2012年，一家小型的硅谷初创公司Envia击败了一些知名公司，签下了一份为期四年的合同，为通用汽车即将推出的旗舰电动Bolt生产200英里电池，取得了非凡的成就。 然而，仅仅几个月后，当事实证明Envia一直夸大其电池的性能甚至在生产电池中的作用时，交易破裂了。 韩国巨头LG最终为通用汽车提供了电池，而Envia这个名字成为该领域的象征。 2015年，总部位于密歇根州的Sakti3是当时最神秘的电池初创公司之一，以9000万美元的价格将自己卖给了吸尘器公司Dyson，据报道它一直在夸大其成就。 在接下来的四年中，戴森放弃了Sakt3的核心专利，让Sakt3的首席执行官Ann Marie Sastry离开了公司，取消了以收购为基础的电池计划，最终在花费了6亿美元之后完全削减了EV计划。 通用汽车电动卡车合伙人尼古拉(Nikola)的创始人在昨晚的公告中辞职。有报道称，美国证券交易委员会(SEC)和司法部正在调查有关夸大其技术主张而误导投资者的指控。
When members of the battery community express frustration over the lack of any data from QuantumScape corroborating its claims, it is the experience of Envia and Sakti3 that is often on their minds. Before QuantumScape’s IPO, remarks in the battery community about its secrecy were more of the cultural variety — a description of its propensities. Now, though, the issue is a hard-and-fast complaint — QuantumScape is selling shares to the public; it needs to come clean.
当电池社区的成员对QuantumScape缺乏任何数据佐证其说法感到沮丧时，他们常常会想到Envia和Sakti3的经历。 在QuantumScape首次公开募股之前，电池社区中有关其保密性的言论更多是文化上的多样性-对其倾向的描述。 然而，现在的问题是一成不变的抱怨— QuantumScape正在向公众出售股票； 它需要清洁。
I raised the subject of disclosure multiple times with Singh. A computer scientist by training, Singh is low-key and calm, with an easy smile and a reputation in Silicon Valley as a tough, single-minded entrepreneur. He pointed me to QuantumScape’s history. Disclosure, he suggested, reflects weakness — when you are short of cash, you are forced to go out and raise it by talking about yourself. Since QuantumScape has been cash rich, it has had the luxury of silence. But that’s not all, he said. Talk was cheap — other battery companies told tall tales before they actually had a strong product. This was why, he said, even as the company had figured out metallic lithium, it had relied on VW — its customer — to issue a validating statement, and still said nothing itself.
我与辛格多次提出了披露的主题。 辛格是一位受过培训的计算机科学家，低调而沉稳，笑容轻松，在硅谷素以坚韧而专一的企业家而闻名。 他向我指出了QuantumScape的历史。 他建议，披露信息反映了自己的弱点-当您缺乏现金时，您被迫出去谈论自己提高自己。 由于QuantumScape拥有大量现金，因此拥有沉寂的奢华。 但这还不是全部，他说。 谈话很便宜-其他电池公司在实际拥有强大产品之前就讲了一些高谈阔论。 他说，这就是为什么即使该公司找到了金属锂，它仍然依靠大众(其客户)发出验证声明，而自己却什么也没说。
Only, it wasn’t clear that VW had validated QuantumScape’s cells. In June 2018, VW announced that it was investing $100 million in QuantumScape. As part of the transaction, the automaker released a statement that was pure confidence in the startup: “Volkswagen successfully tested QuantumScape early-stage solid-state battery sample cells in Germany running at automotive rates of power — an industry first,” it said.
只是，尚不清楚大众是否已验证QuantumScape的细胞。 2018年6月，大众宣布向QuantumScape投资1亿美元。 作为交易的一部分，这家汽车制造商发布了一份对初创公司完全充满信心的声明：“大众汽车成功地在德国测试了以汽车功率运行的QuantumScape早期固态电池样品电池，这在业内是首创。”
This version omits the words “successfully” and “an industry first,” and merely notes that the cells had been tested, a non-committal and thus meaningless bit of wording.
此版本省略了“成功”和“行业至上”的字眼，仅指出这些单元已经过测试，这是一种不拘一格的措辞，因此毫无意义。
But three months later, in September 2018, when the investment was closed, VW’s effusive language subtly changed. In the new press release, VW said, “Volkswagen has already tested QuantumScape early-stage solid-state battery sample cells in Germany running at automotive rates of power.” This version omitted the words “successfully” and “an industry first,” and merely noted that the cells had been tested, a non-committal and thus meaningless bit of verbiage.
但是三个月后，即2018年9月，当投资完成时，大众汽车的流利语言发生了微妙的变化。 大众在新的新闻稿中说：“大众汽车已经在德国测试了以汽车功率运行的QuantumScape早期固态电池样品池。” 该版本省略了“成功”和“行业至上”的字眼，仅指出这些单元已经过测试，这是一种非承诺性的措辞，因此毫无意义。
The even stranger thing was that during the promotion around the SPAC — QuantumScape’s coming out party, the first time it had ever uttered a public word about its product — its slide deck quoted the second VW statement, not the first. I couldn’t figure it out. It didn’t seem possible that a company as meticulous and painstaking as QuantumScape somehow missed that its single supposed validation was missing the key descriptors. But that’s what both Singh and Enrico Beltz, head of VW’s media relations, suggested. They separately said the omissions in the second statement were inadvertent and did not indicate any change in VW’s attitude about the startup’s battery. In terms of the slide deck when the IPO was announced, Singh said no one had noticed the wording.
更奇怪的是，在SPAC周围的促销活动中-QuantumScape的亮相聚会，这是它第一次对产品发表公开言论-其滑盖引用了第二个大众声明，而不是第一个。 我不知道。 一家像QuantumScape这样细致而艰苦的公司似乎不可能以某种方式错过其单一假设的验证而错过了关键描述符。 但这就是辛格和大众媒体关系主管恩里科·贝尔茨(Enrico Beltz)所提出的。 他们分别说第二句话中的遗漏是无意的，并不表示大众对初创公司电池的态度有任何改变。 关于首次公开募股宣布时的幻灯片，辛格说，没有人注意到这一措辞。
So I asked Beltz directly whether VW had validated QuantumScape’s work. He responded by email, “QuantumScape is on a good way to develop this very promising technology and all tests show good progress. For detailed information please contact QuantumScape directly.” What tests was he referring to? What is the definition of “good progress”? Why didn’t he just respond unambiguously and say that, “Indeed, we have validated them.”
因此，我直接问贝尔茨(Beltz)，大众是否验证了QuantumScape的工作。 他通过电子邮件回复说：“ QuantumScape正在开发这项非常有前途的技术，而且所有测试均显示出良好的进展。 有关详细信息，请直接联系QuantumScape。” 他指的是什么测试？ “良好进展”的定义是什么？ 他为什么不明确回答并说：“的确，我们已经验证了它们。”
I also asked Beltz whether VW was on track to deploy QuantumScape’s battery in the cars it sells commercially in 2025, as Singh claimed. He responded, “We are working on a timeline together with QuantumScape and the next steps in the research activities of this technology will be essential to finalize further decisions.” Again, VW seemed to be backing away from any concrete assurances about when or if QuantumScape’s material will find itself into a VW Group vehicle.
正如辛格所说，我还问贝尔茨(Beltz)，大众公司是否正在按计划在2025年将QuantumScape的电池部署到商业销售的汽车中。 他回答说：“我们正在与QuantumScape一起制定时间表，这项技术研究活动的下一步对于最终确定进一步的决定至关重要。” 再次，大众似乎对QuantumScape的材料何时或是否会进入大众集团的车辆没有任何具体保证。
My sense was that QuantumScape was stuck in a loop, cloistered for so long that secrecy was now muscle memory and personal attitude. There appeared to be mild commercial exaggeration in Singh’s schtick of the sort that salesmen in any field do. For instance, he told me that QuantumScape was the only metallic lithium battery company to get its cells validated by a major automaker at the industry’s demanding charge-discharge rates. But Doug Campbell of Solid Power asserts that his company, too, has done so, though he would not say by which automaker — Hyundai, BMW, Ford or Nissan, the carmakers invested in his company.
我的感觉是，QuantumScape陷入了一个循环，回避了很长时间，以至于保密现在是肌肉记忆和个人态度。 辛格这种在任何领域的推销员都喜欢的招式似乎在商业上有些夸张。 例如，他告诉我，QuantumScape是唯一一家由大型汽车制造商以业界要求的充放电速率对电池进行验证的金属锂电池公司。 但是，Solid Power的道格·坎贝尔(Doug Campbell)断言，他的公司也这样做了，尽管他没有说汽车制造商向现代汽车，宝马，福特或日产汽车投资了他的公司。
Yet Singh was mainly straightforward. He said he wasn’t prepared to provide corroborating data for this story, but that he did intend to release some in the fourth quarter as part of an event for stock analysts. He was non-committal about the timing — when the stock ticker changes to QS, and QuantumScape is officially listed, it is possible that investors will still be buying and selling the stock absent evidence of the company’s claims. But at least there will be data.
然而，辛格主要是坦率的。 他说他不准备为这个故事提供确凿的数据，但他确实打算在第四季度发布一些作为股票分析师活动的一部分。 他对时机不容置疑-当股票代码更改为QS，并且QuantumScape正式上市时，投资者可能仍会买卖没有该公司债权证据的股票。 但是至少会有数据。
QuantumScape has a ways to go before reaching commercial production. Until now, the hardest thing had been mastering the LLZO, which required so many tweaks that, in effect, Singh’s team had “invented a whole new material,” he said. Rivals could try to catch up, but Singh said that would be hard. With a billion dollars in cash in hand, QuantumScape had enough to take the next big step — scaling up, especially getting the tricky LLZO to work in square meter-size sheets. “What is left is execution risk,” Singh said, meaning producing the product at a commercial scale. “Can this team do the blocking and tackling that’s required to make this happen? … We’ve got a real shot at bringing this to market.”
在实现商业化生产之前，QuantumScape有一段路要走。 到目前为止，最困难的事情是掌握LLZO，这需要进行许多调整，实际上，辛格的团队“发明了一种全新的材料”。 竞争对手可能会努力追赶，但辛格说这很难。 拥有10亿美元的现金，QuantumScape足以迈出下一步—扩大规模，尤其是使棘手的LLZO在平方米大小的纸张上工作。 辛格说：“剩下的就是执行风险。”这意味着要以商业规模生产该产品。 “这个团队能否做到这一点所需的阻碍和应对？ …我们确实将其推向市场。”
Again, some battery experts have their doubts. Ordinarily, battery-makers try to do all their work at room temperature, for reasons of ease and cost. But the LLZO powder must be heated to 1,300 degrees centigrade in order to create a dense sheet, and it must be laid down thin — just 20 microns, less than half the thickness of a human hair. QuantumScape’s battery cells must be scaled up from a single layer to a stack, to be inserted into a prismatic pack. And there is the usual problem of laying down the metallic lithium uniformly. Even if all of this goes according to plan, including rigorous testing along the way, the process would take a lot of time, some experts argue. QuantumScape might only be ready for a commercial vehicle in 2027 or so — two years later than planned — estimated James Frith, head of energy storage at Bloomberg NEF, a renewable energy consultancy. Jordi Sastre Pellicer, a PhD student researching a dissertation on LLZO at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, wrote a long, much-read Twitter thread casting doubt on the practicality of the material. “I have to say I remain quite skeptical until I see some actual data of a battery with the performances they claim,” Pellicer told me.
同样，一些电池专家对此表示怀疑。 通常，电池制造商出于简便和成本的原因而尝试在室温下完成所有工作。 但是LLZO粉末必须加热到1300摄氏度才能形成致密的薄片，并且必须铺得很薄-仅20微米，不到人发厚度的一半。 QuantumScape的电池必须从单层放大到堆叠，然后才能插入棱柱形电池组。 并且存在通常的问题，即均匀地沉积金属锂。 一些专家认为，即使所有这些都按计划进行，包括严格的测试，整个过程也将花费很多时间。 QuantumScape可能只在2027年左右才准备好用于商用车，比计划晚了两年。可再生能源咨询公司彭博NEF的储能主管James Frith估计。 在瑞士联邦材料科学与技术实验室研究LLZO论文的博士生Jordi Sastre Pellicer撰写了一篇很长的，备受读者欢迎的Twitter帖子，对该材料的实用性产生了疑问。 “我不得不说我一直持怀疑态度，直到我看到他们声称的性能的电池实际数据为止，” Pellicer告诉我。
All is not dark. One of the main worries has been that the LLZO will be too brittle and could shatter during the manufacturing process. But Jeff Sakamoto, a professor at the University of Michigan who has long worked with LLZO, said that’s unfounded. Under 100 microns in thickness, he said, LLZO becomes flexible and bendable, and can be easily integrated into current lithium-ion rolling machines. “Mother Nature cut us a break,” he said. A big upside, he said, is that “at the moment, we don’t have to violate physics to make this work.”
一切都不黑暗。 主要担心之一是LLZO太脆，可能在制造过程中破碎。 但是密歇根大学教授，长期与LLZO合作的Jeff Sakamoto表示，这是没有根据的。 他说，LLZO的厚度不到100微米，变得柔软，可弯曲，并且可以轻松集成到当前的锂离子压延机中。 他说：“大自然母亲让我们休息了一段时间。” 他说，一个很大的好处是“目前，我们不必违反物理学就能完成这项工作。”
As long as the QuantumScape story ends with validation of metallic lithium and a solid state battery installed in a VW vehicle, the current frustration around its opacity will be forgotten. The company will probably become a new model for how to do big battery science: throw a ton of money at a top-notch team, lock them into a room, and give them a decade to produce something.
只要QuantumScape的故事以验证金属锂和安装在大众汽车中的固态电池而告终，那么人们对于它的不透明度的不满就会被遗忘。 该公司可能会成为进行大型电池科学的新模式：向一流团队投入大量资金，将其锁定在一个房间内，并给他们十年的时间来生产某种东西。
Given the stakes of getting batteries right — cutting the use of fossil fuels, creating new jobs in struggling rust belts, and more — that will be an enormous win. The problem will be if, after all this, QuantumScape comes up short. But if so, that will apropos for batteries. “Battery companies make bold claims all the time,” said Dan Steingart, a professor at Columbia. “The anti-bodies in the community are pretty strong. I’m in a trust but verify mode. But if it works, it would be a new chapter in batteries.”
考虑到正确使用电池的风险-减少化石燃料的使用，在陷入困境的生锈带中创造新的工作，等等，这将是巨大的胜利。 问题将是，如果毕竟，QuantumScape出现问题。 但如果是这样，那将适合电池。 哥伦比亚大学教授丹·斯汀加特(Dan Steingart)说：“电池公司一直在大胆宣称。” “社区中的抗体机构非常强大。 我处于信任但验证模式。 但是，如果它能奏效，那将是电池的新篇章。”
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