QuantumScape Corporation

of Capital Markets and FP&A, you may begin your conference.

Thank you, Operator. Good afternoon, and thank you to everyone for joining QuantumScape's first quarter 2024 earnings call. To supplement today's discussion, please go to our IR website at ir.quantumscape.com to view our shareholder letter. Before we begin, I want to call your attention to the Safe Harbor provision for forward-looking statements that is posted on our website as part of our quarterly update. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events, future technology progress, or future financial or operating performance. Our expectations and beliefs regarding these matters may not materialize. Actual results and financial periods are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. There are risk factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from the content of our forward-looking statement for the reasons that we cite in our shareholder letter Form 10-K, and other SEC filings, including uncertainties posed by the difficulty in predicting future outcomes. Joining us today will be QuantumScape's CEO, Dr. Siva Sivaram, and our CFO, Evan Petrick. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Siva.

Thank you, John. At the beginning of this year, we laid out four key goals for 2024 to help investors follow our progress as we move from prototype to product. Begin shipment of Alpha 2 prototype battery cells. Ramp our Raptor fast-separated production process. Begin low-volume B0 prototype production of our first commercial product, QSC5. And prepare our COBRA process to support higher volumes of QSC5 in 2025. We announced on March 27th that we started shipments of six-layer Alpha 2 prototype battery cells to automotive customers, which is the first of our four key goals for 2024. This is a key deliverable in our engagement with our prospective launch customer. The Alpha 2 prototype combines higher-loading cathodes with our flex-frame cell format and improvements to packaging efficiency, tighter internal margins, thinner current collectors, and a slimmer design. Alpha 2 is important because when combined with Raptor films and other refinements and incorporated into approximately 5 amp hour design, it represents the core of QSC5. The Alpha 2 design is intended to serve as an effective demonstration platform for customers to preview important electrical performance capabilities of the planned QSC5. Customer feedback is the most critical input in the product development cycle, as it provides insight into areas that need improvement and strengthens collaboration. In our shareholder letter, we published data on four key performance features of alpha-2 cells. The first of these is discharge power, which relates directly to vehicle acceleration in high-performance applications. Alpha-2 prototypes are capable of up to 10C discharge rates, which in a 100 kilowatt-hour pack would be nominally equivalent to over 1,000 horsepower. We believe this translates to a compelling combination of energy and power compared to conventional lithium-ion cell designs. Second, fast charging is an important feature for EV applications. Improving on previous results, Alpha 2 prototypes have demonstrated the capability to fast charge from 10% to 80% state of charge in less than 15 minutes. Third is low temperature performance. Conventional EV battery performance can be significantly impaired when ambient temperature drops below freezing. Our cells have the potential to offer good energy density and hence range across the spectrum of operating temperatures down to minus 25 degrees Celsius. Last is the advances in applied pressure. As a reminder, some solid-state battery technologies can appear to deliver acceptable performance when put under high externally applied pressure. We are aware of various solid-state battery groups reporting cycling results using test pressures from 20 atmospheres to as high as 750 atmospheres. Such high pressures are impractical for real-world EV applications. In the Alpha 2 prototype, we have now reduced externally applied pressure to 0.7 atmospheres within the range currently present in conventional EV battery pack designs, and we believe this allows us to integrate ourselves into existing pack concepts. We continue to target zero-pressure designs for consumer electronics applications. We believe the combination of these capabilities, plan for QSC5, represents an unmatched value proposition. And alpha 2 represents an important step forward as we work towards ramping up our manufacturing capabilities and improving the reliability performance of our cells. Now a word on our production outlook. Our current generation separator production process will continue to serve ongoing alpha 2 sample production for customer shipment and internal testing in q2 in parallel increased production from the new raptor process will allow us to gather larger volumes of cell testing data to validate safety and reliability improvements accelerate process improvement of downstream cell assembly steps and begin production of qs e5 b0 samples Most of the upstream and downstream automation equipment that serves the Raptor heat treatment equipment has completed or is undergoing site acceptance testing. The Raptor process has shown encouraging improvements with respect to certain critical to quality metrics. In addition to the planned Raptor ramp, we are also streamlining cell assembly processes by simplifying the bill of materials, consolidating process steps, and increasing automation to enable a smooth ramp of cell production. While supporting initial production of QSC5 prototype cells, Raptor also serves as a learning platform for our next generation of separated production, the COBRA process. COBRA is intended to combine the fundamental process innovations pioneered by Raptor with specialized equipment capable of realizing the full potential of past separated production. The COBRA process is necessary to enable higher volumes of QSC5 prototype production in 2025. Last, a word on our strategic outlook. We remain tightly focused on a singular goal, bringing our first commercial solid-state lithium metal battery cell to market for electric vehicle application. Achieving this ambitious goal requires three major elements. differentiated technology, close customer engagement, and methodical execution of our milestones. On the first point, we believe the performance differentiation of our solid-state lithium metal technology continues to be clear, as successive iterations of samples have demonstrated. On the customer front, we are increasing our focus on intensive collaboration with our automotive partners, including our prospective launch customers. And finally, we continue to pursue a disciplined approach to product development and process deployment. While there is still significant work ahead of us, we are as enthusiastic as ever about our technology and its potential impact, and we look forward to sharing more details over the months to come. With that, I'll hand over to Kevin for a word on our financial outlook. Thank you, Seva.