QuantumScape Corporation

process where the firm's just run through a continuous flow heat treatment tool that ends up processing those at the right heat profile. So those are the kind of things that we're doing and that we need to keep doing. At the end of the day, the measurement of that comes out to, are we able to deliver the cells that we are planning on delivering to our customers? So if we could, for example, have a QS0 produce 200,000 cells a year like we're planning on, then that would be an indicator that all those metrics are, in fact, tracking to our goals.

Yeah, that makes sense. And just lastly, I was hoping you might be able to just pass along what you're hearing from other OEMs aside from Volkswagen on the developments since you've made them public. Some of them seem to still be very focused on silicon anodes with conventional separators and electrolyte. Are they conveying that that's kind of a temporary solution, or are you hearing more interest from others at this point?

Well, I mean, what we're hearing is exactly that, that people, you know, clearly silicon is here today and has been here, frankly, for a while. So, you know, one thing, sorry, a couple points. One is that silicon is here today, so there's no reason not to use it. But I think there's, you know, of the people that we've spoken to, there's general agreement that lithium metal is the endgame. In fact, those are some of the words that we hear from the OEMs directly, because you can't have a theoretically high energy energy density or specific energy anode than pure lithium metal in the sense that lithium metal doesn't have any host material. So all you have in a lithium anode is the same lithium that's cycling back and forth. Assuming, of course, it's zero lithium cells. There's no excess lithium in there to help the nucleation of that lithium anode. So with zero lithium, the only lithium in the anode is one that's cycling back and forth. You know, there's no silicon, no carbon, nothing else to weigh you down or take up space. Now, the second point about silicon is the reason why silicon is a little bit, you know, a nebulous thing to get your object on is because, you know, When people say silicon anode today, what they're really talking about is some amount of silicon that's actually put into a carbon anode. So it's a carbon anode with some level of silicon in it. It's never 100% pure silicon. And the reason for that is, as you I'm sure know, is pure silicon absorbs a lot of lithium and expands by a factor of four, roughly speaking, and then contracts again when that lithium goes out as a cell is discharged. So they've been charged and discharged. Lithium is already expanding and contracting like a sponge soaking up lithium. I'm sorry, silicon is expanding, contracting like a sponge soaking up lithium and letting it go. And over repeated recycling, that silicon pulverizes itself, resulting in a loss of capacity. So the only way to prevent that that people have come up with is to have a small amount of silicon in the carbon anode. And so there's a direct trade-off. with silicon anode could mean how much silicon you have, which corresponds to energy density, and your cycle life, which results from the polarization of that silicon. So when people say silicon, it's important to ask, well, how much silicon are you talking about? Because 100% silicon solution, to our knowledge, has never been shown to have any kind of decent cycle life. And this is, unfortunately, one of the things that sometimes You know, not reported in a way that's easy to understand. Some companies on the silicon side will sometimes report data where they'll show energy density of a silicon anode with a higher amount of silicon in it, and then they'll show a cyclized slide with a lower amount of silicon in it. And it leaves the leader uncertain as to whether it's the same cell or not. It's important to kind of be able to ask those questions so they understand what's being said. So for the net of it is that, yes, the OEMs that we're talking to are all looking at silicon as an intermediate step towards the endgame of a pure metallic lithium anode if that can be done. Obviously, we haven't yet shipped them pure lithium cells to put in their cars, but if we do that, then we expect to see very strong interest in that from multiple OEMs as opposed to continuing to use silicon anodes.