Why I think Quantumscape is a great company for value investors with a growth mindset
Our edge as retail investors are 2 things; to be contrarian and to take timelines others are not willing to. I find this personally to be anywhere upwards of 3 years. With these in mind I found Quantumscape towards the end of 2021 midway through its intial covid money hype run
For some history we have been using very similar to sony's commercialized 1991 lithium ion battery for the last 34 years, we have done a million minor changes to optimize the energy density, cycle count, safety and discharge rate but at this point we are maxed out in what it can do for us
Quantumscape's moat while cliche being similar to TSMC/Nvidia partnership, through non stop learning and adapting to newer chemistries they have the next 10 years planned out to modernize the lithium battery and energy industry further than their intial 2028 consumer production battery without having to handle the actual production themselves. This should allow them to maintain their leader role of at least 2 years. These improvements will come in the form of EVs, ebikes, stationary storage either grid or home, lighter phones and while not being enough for large passenger aircraft they should aid the EVtol market
Their technology of a ceramic seperator that lacks imperfections on the nanoscale allows them to remove the anode from the battery and instead allows for lithium plating during the charging process without destructive dendrites from forming. Currently the anode's limitation to the amount of energy a battery can store in either Wh/L (watt hour per litre) or Wh/Kg. By being able to remove the anode liquid solution this opens the potential for even higher energy densities beyond NMC down the line.
Now to get to why its a good thing as comsumers. The semi solid state battery Quantumscape plans to unveil will have 50% better energy density(range anxiety no more), be able to easily handle 800 charge/discharge cycles even at fast charging rates of 4C+ (10mins 10-80%) and after these 800cycles still be at 80% max capacity, be adaptable to temperature changes that currently reduce lithium ion battery's winter capacity by 30-50%(at -15 to -35Cº) all while being a lot more stable than the already pretty good batteries so even less risk of fire.
As value investors we see a lot of chaotic business management teams in the market. Another reason I like Quantumscape is their understanding of slow and steady, they have been chugging away at this mission for 15 years now under their CTO Standford's professor Dr Tim Holme. Coupled by their conservative understanding of market dynamics they have been able to raise money at times to keep themselves liquid through the last 3 years to ride out the market uncertainty without needing to pivot. At this point they sit on 1B cash and have partnerships with Murata and Corning so that they can focus on developing the technology and production output plans without having to handle production scaleout directly. They have also been very open about timelines and being clear about where they are and will be and following it
If you're interested, Quantumscape's youtube is a goldmine of technical info including debunking many competitor's technology claims including inferior silicon anodes. The r/Quantumscape_Stock sub is also great for following the business under the microscope