7/22/2026

speaker
Operator

Thank you for standing by and welcome to QuantumScape's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. If your question has been answered and you'd like to remove yourself from the queue, simply press star 1-1 again. As a reminder, today's program is being recorded. And now I'd like to introduce your host for today's program, Sam Kamar. QuantumScape's Senior Director, Investor Relations. You may begin, sir.

speaker
Sam Kamar
Senior Director, Investor Relations

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, and thank you to everyone for joining QuantumScape's second quarter 2026 earnings call. To supplement today's discussion, please go to our Investor Relations website at ir.quantumscape.com to view our shoulder 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 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 is factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from the content of our forward-looking statements for the reasons that we cite in our share on the letter from 10-K and other SEC filings. including uncertainties posed by the difficulty in predicting future outcomes. Joining us today will be QuantumScape CEO, Dr. Siva Sivaram, and our CFO, Kevin Hetrick. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Siva.

speaker
Dr. Siva Sivaram
Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Sam. I'd like to start by discussing our automotive commercialization progress. This quarter, we announced a partnership with Honda. This is a multi-year agreement aimed at advancing our solid-state lithium metal battery technology for automotive and other applications in the Honda product portfolio. Honda is renowned for their engineering excellence and product quality and has made significant investments in scaling up solid-state battery manufacturing capabilities. This partnership results from one of the most rigorous assessments of our technology to date. Our ceramic separator and anode-free lithium metal architecture enables QS to provide solutions to unlock the full potential of solid chain batteries. With Honda's diverse product portfolio, this collaboration allows us an additional pathway to expand into new high-value markets. We recently updated our ongoing collaboration and licensing arrangement with Volkswagen Power Co. with a set of milestones and payments focused on automotive cell development, larger format cells, and our future technology roadmap. We are also working with two other top 10 automotive OEM customers under existing joint development agreements. We continue to strengthen our relationships with automakers in North America, Europe, and Japan. And on this front, we have shipped cells to an additional automotive OEM customer. We also see broad-based interest in our technology across a variety of applications beyond electric vehicles, including AI data centers and other advanced applications such as aerospace and defense. We believe that all these end markets can be served by our fundamental technology stack, but each customer can benefit from an individually tailored go-to-market approach. In order to serve our diverse and growing customer base, we are establishing three business verticals. QSEV for electric vehicles, QSDC for AI data centers, and QSAS for advanced solutions for applications including aerospace and defense. QSEV is working with auto OEMs around the world, including Volkswagen and Honda. QSBC is engaged with ODMs to design solutions based on QSC5 technology for the fast-moving AI data center market. And QSAS has shipped QSC5 cells to a major American defense prime and is engaged with global players across the aerospace and defense industries. Next, an update on the Eagle line. our highly automated pilot cell production line in San Jose, California. The Eagle line serves several purposes. Greater cell volumes allow us to meet customer demand for samples. Higher throughput accelerates the process development cycle. And automated equipment serves as a proving ground for scaling up production. Demonstrating scalable production of a unique technology on a first-of-a-kind automated line is a significant challenge, and as such, it is one of our four key annual goals. Applying our systematic, methodical, and iterative approach, we have made significant operational progress with the Eagle line. Core tools are showing uptime greater than 90%, Key metrics of productivity are hitting our targets, and we are currently ramping sample volumes and shipping cells to customers. As we continue to improve process stability and control, we aim to further double cell output in the second half of 2026 and anticipate customer sample shipments accelerating across all three verticals. We are orchestrating a network of partners within the QoS technology ecosystem with the aim of scaling up cell production. As part of this effort, we are working closely with established battery equipment vendors to lay the groundwork for future factories. We also continue to collaborate with our ecosystem partners at Murata Manufacturing and Corning, working towards high-volume ceramic separator production using our COBRA process. Next, two updates on our technology. We have received consistent customer feedback that in addition to the combination of energy density and power capability, the safety profile of our technology is highly valuable. Competing next-generation approaches such as silicon or lithium metal anodes with liquid electrolytes can pose serious safety hazards. In contrast, our proprietary ceramic separator is non-flammable and non-combustible, which enables an improved safety profile relative to lithium-ion cells. Thanks to the increased cell output from the Eagle line, we are able to conduct larger-scale safety testing across a broad range of commercially relevant tests, including nail penetration, external short circuit, and thermal stability, testing up to 300 degrees Celsius, whereas conventional lithium ion testing stops at 200 degrees. We are pleased to report that larger scale testing continues to show that QSC5 is a significantly safer cell design compared to both conventional and next generation lithium ion cells. We have also seen customer interest for our technology in cell form factors that are larger than the QSC5. One benefit of larger format cells is improved packing efficiency, which can result in higher cell level energy density. In response to this customer interest, we have demonstrated that our COBRA process can produce larger area separators for higher capacity cell design, which shows the flexibility and scalability of our ceramic separated technology to meet customer requirements. I want to take a step back and look at the big picture. QS was founded with the mission to revolutionize energy storage. Today, it's becoming clear just how consequential that mission is. Transportation, AI, and defense are simultaneously undergoing fundamental transformations. Electric vehicles are reshaping the global automotive market. Drones and unmanned systems are rewriting the rules of different strategies. And AI is unlocking new capabilities for every business and person on the planet. These extraordinary developments all have one thing in common. They all need better batteries. We are positioning our organization to take advantage of these technology transformations. QSBC is working to capitalize on exciting high-value opportunities in the AI data center market. And QSAS is engaging in customers in high-value aerospace and defense applications. With QSEV, we are advancing automotive commercialization with our four top 10 OEM customers, including the newly announced Honda partnership. The Eagle line is ramping up to enable increased customer shipments in the second half of the year. And we are investing in future technology roadmaps with larger format cells and more in the pipeline. There is much work still to do, but our team has the talent and tenacity to overcome challenges as we industrialize our technology to make the most of these transformational opportunities. Thank you for your support, and we look forward to sharing more updates in the months ahead. With that, I'll turn things over to Kevin for a word on our financial outlook.

speaker
Kevin Hetrick
Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Siva. GAAP operating expenses and GAAP net loss in Q2 were 106.1 million and 98.2 million, respectively. Adjusted EBITDA loss was 64.2 million in Q2, in line with expectations. For full year 2026, we reiterate our adjusted EBITDA loss guidance of between 250 million and 275 million. A table reconciling gap net loss and adjusted EBITDA is available in the financial statement at the end of our shareholder letter. Capital expenditures in the second quarter were $4.6 million. Q2 CapEx was primarily composed of investment into our technology roadmap and associated facility spend. For full year 2026, we lower our guidance for CapEx to be between $27 million and $37 million. reflecting capital discipline and cost savings on specific capital projects. We set a public goal for customer billings in 2026 to exceed customer billings in 2025. As of today, we've achieved this goal. Customer billings in Q2 were 10.8 million. Total customer billings through Q2 26 are 21.8 million, exceeding fiscal year 2025 customer billings of 19.5 million. Customer billings as a metric represents the total value of all invoices issued by QuantumScape to our customers and partners in the period, regardless of accounting treatment. As a reminder, customer billings may vary from quarter to quarter due to fluctuations in activity as we progress through various phases of engagement. This operational metric is not a substitute for revenue under US GAAP. We ended Q2 with $859 million in liquidity and will remain prudent with our strong balance sheet going forward. As always, we encourage investors to read more on our financial information, business outlook, and risk factors in our quarterly and annual SEC filings on our investor relations website.

speaker
Sam Kamar
Senior Director, Investor Relations

Thanks, Kevin. We will begin today's Q&A portion with a few questions we received from investors that I believe would interest investors. Steven, we are now halfway through 2026. What proof points should investors evaluate to know if QuantumScape is tracking to our annual goals?

speaker
Dr. Siva Sivaram
Chief Executive Officer

Goal number one is to demonstrate scalable production with the Eagle9. Taking a unique technology on a highly automated process from the ceramic separator to the unit cell to the fully assembled QSC5 that meets customer requirements is a significant challenge. We are making strong operational progress and remain on track. Goal number two is to advance automotive commercialization with QSEB. We are working with four of the top 10 global automakers, including our new deal with Honda. Adding another paying customer is a big step forward in our commercialization efforts. We also updated the PowerCore collaboration and licensing arrangement with milestones for automotive cell development, and we shipped sells to an additional automotive OEM in this past quarter. Goal three is to enter into new high-value markets. We are very excited about the progress we are making in these new business verticals. We have appointed talented leaders to run QSDC and QSAS. QSDC is engaging with ODMs and data center architects to provide solutions for this fast-moving market. QSAS has shipped QSC5 cells to a major American defense prime, and we are engaged with global customers in aerospace, defense, and other advanced applications. Goal four is to go beyond QSC5 with our future technology roadmap. This quarter, we showed larger format separators from COBRA, which enables higher energy density cells. We've also shown new safety data this quarter with thermal stability, external short circuit, and nail penetration results that are particularly outstanding compared to competitors. We are committed to sharing more on our technology roadmap later this year.

speaker
Kevin Hetrick
Chief Financial Officer

We're making the progress Siva discussed toward our technical and commercial goals while remaining disciplined stewards of capital. We have reiterated adjusted EBITDA guidance and total customer billings for 2026 are already higher than last year.

speaker
Sam Kamar
Senior Director, Investor Relations

We are now organized into three business verticals. What is our approach to serving automotive and non-automotive markets?

speaker
Dr. Siva Sivaram
Chief Executive Officer

We see broad-based demand for better batteries across the board, AI data centers, aerospace, consumer electronics, medical devices, defense, and many other applications. We believe they're all capable of being served by the QS technology platform. The benefits of energy density, power, safety, U.S. supply chain and workforce all resonate with our customers. For the QS EV vertical, our automotive customers all have development pilot lines for batteries and high-volume manufacturing capabilities. For QS DC and QS AS customers, this may not be the case. They are fast-moving, the number of customers is larger, go-to-market has different channels, we may involve ODMs, and product integration looks different with more opportunities for value creation. These new verticals increase the size of the market, strengthen the fundamental technology platform, and benefit the QS ecosystem, which adds value to our customers across all verticals.

speaker
Sam Kamar
Senior Director, Investor Relations

Siva, what should investors take away from the recent updates to the VW and PowerCore relationship, and how do they reflect the progress being made towards commercialization?

speaker
Dr. Siva Sivaram
Chief Executive Officer

Sam, the relationship with VW PowerCore continues to be strong, and the two teams are working closely together on-site here in San Jose. The overall objectives of the collaborations are unchanged. Industrialize the QS technology. and transfer the technology to Volkswagen PowerCoop for automotive commercialization. Over the past two years, we have continued to update and revise the scope of work as we progress this relationship. The updated scope of work includes milestones related to larger form factor cells, as well as technology elements from QuantumScape's advanced product roadmap. And we look forward to sharing more on that soon.

speaker
Kevin Hetrick
Chief Financial Officer

From a financial perspective, Customer billings under the 2025 VW PowerCo collaboration agreement represent a cost share for QS expenses occurred under the agreed scope of work. Under the new scope of work, we've tied payments to deliverables aligned to our product roadmap. Additionally, we eliminated MotoE-related milestones, given that the organizers put that race series on hiatus. As a result, Even though the total possible payments under the agreement have reduced from approximately $131 million to approximately $75 million, we now project significantly reduced expenses for the project. We forecast a net neutral financial impact in terms of cash when compared to the 2025 scope of work. I'd refer investors to the 8K on file for more information.

speaker
Sam Kamar
Senior Director, Investor Relations

Okay. Thanks so much, Kevin. We're now ready to begin the live portion of today's call. Operator, please open up the line for questions.

speaker
Operator

Certainly. And as a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, if you do have a question at this time, please press star 1-1 on your telephone. Our first question for today comes from the line of Gabriel Gonzalez from UBS. Your question, please.

speaker
Gabriel Gonzalez
Analyst, UBS

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. So, firstly, on the updated power code agreement, The updated milestone framework appears to have shifted away from execution-oriented targets like battery cell delivery and validation over the next two years towards cell development and technology-related objectives. So can you just help us understand the reasoning behind that change, and should we view the absence of the earlier milestones as a change in expectations regarding their timing or suitability?

speaker
Dr. Siva Sivaram
Chief Executive Officer

The Volkswagen Power Co. agreements, we update them every year. We have done that three years in a row. As the relationship progresses, we update it based on the milestones yet to come. And we have done that consistently. The relationship is very strong and our objectives remain the same. This reflects that we will be paid based on the milestones that we both have agreed that we need to achieve, which are aligned with our technology roadmap. For instance, the larger format cell, the future technology milestones that we need to get, et cetera. There is not anything philosophically different about the objectives of the joint program.

speaker
Gabriel Gonzalez
Analyst, UBS

Got it. Okay. Thank you for that color. And Kevin, you mentioned a neutral impact cash flow, the lower expenses for the project offsetting the lower cash inflow, but is there any impact to the $130 million realty prepayment from PowerCo? And if not, what's the progress update there, and should we expect those funds to come in this year or next year?

speaker
Kevin Hetrick
Chief Financial Officer

Great question, Gabe. You're correct that the $130 million prepay is unchanged here and is released by technical milestones and alignment on the form factor. And there, as we laid out in the letter, we've made nice progress as we've outlined with the EGLE line and also with the demonstration of those larger separators coming off of our COBRA line.

speaker
Gabriel Gonzalez
Analyst, UBS

Got it. Okay. Thank you. I'll pass it on.

speaker
Operator

Thanks, Gabe. Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Itai McKelly from TD Cowan. Your question, please.

speaker
Justin
Analyst, FreeTie

Hey, great. This is Justin on FreeTie. How's everyone?

speaker
Kevin Hetrick
Chief Financial Officer

Hi, Justin.

speaker
Justin
Analyst, FreeTie

So a super quick question. So you guys highlighted QSAS, the shipments of the QSE5 cells in the quarter. I guess, can you help us understand maybe some of the nuance around that shipment? Was it just natural ramp cadence associated with the Eagle line? Is there any kind of the deferral of milestones that might have freed up some incremental capacity that allowed those shipments? Just trying to get a better understanding, I guess, of maybe how that ramp is kind of progressing on yield, line times, cycle times, and any improvements or color you can provide, at least on that AI model update for the reliability improvements that may have contributed there as well.

speaker
Dr. Siva Sivaram
Chief Executive Officer

Just a great question. So the answer is yes. The Eagle line obviously is improving in productivity. As you would expect, taking a brand new technology, a very unique technology, into a new highly automated line and getting the product out to meet customer demands is a difficult challenge. And we've been doing very good progress on the Eagle line through the last three months since we installed the line in February. And this allows us, the increased volume allows us to, there are three major benefits out of this. A, clearly it gives us more samples to ship to customers. B, the higher volume allows us to learn rapidly. And three, the Eagle line itself serves as the basis for the technology transfer for the higher volume lines later on with our customers. So this naturally allowed us to be able to ship this out of the Eagle line for a customer demand in the U.S. defense brand.

speaker
Justin
Analyst, FreeTie

Super helpful. And then maybe on QFDC while we're on the topic, How far away do you envision the initial shipments of samples into that vertical? Obviously, there's been progress in the quarter. I'm just trying to get an understanding of maybe the timeline as to when samples start hitting them and how quickly the conversion rate might be relative to the AF side of the business now.

speaker
Dr. Siva Sivaram
Chief Executive Officer

QSDC, as you all observe, is a very fast-moving business. And the demands are going up rapidly. And there are significant players involved. We are working closely with data center architects and ODMs that supply to these architects. We are working closely to develop designs that can be delivered to these ODMs to integrate. And it also allows us to do higher value in our integration in the product. So this is all coming together very rapidly. We have a new general manager for the business. Shahar Noy is getting ramped up on this very, very rapidly.

speaker
Justin
Analyst, FreeTie

Perfect. And then if I could sneak one final one in before jumping in the queue, more mechanic-wise. On the Q2 billings of the 10.8, how much of that was power? Because I guess just trying to square up maybe the 75 in context of, I believe it was 20 as of the end of Q1. Just trying to figure out the incremental to see how much is left, at least on that milestone update that you guys provided from a payment perspective.

speaker
Kevin Hetrick
Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, thank you for the question. So there's certainly part of the mix. We don't, as practice, break out the billings into finer detail. I would mention that as part of our annual goals, We have a number of customer-facing ones. One is to advance automotive collaboration. You have the update to VW Today. You have the Honda relationship. Further success there means advancing those relationships and adding more. And also the letter goes into detail with making progress in other customer segments, including the AI data center and advanced solution spaces. So the goal is to advance those relationships as well, and you get a broader and broader portfolio of customer activity across that metric.

speaker
Gabriel Gonzalez
Analyst, UBS

Awesome. Thanks for the call. I'll jump back at you.

speaker
Kevin Hetrick
Chief Financial Officer

One other brief plug. On the Eagle line, we did put out a video today between our COO, Luca, and his VP of Automation and Hardware, talking about the importance of the line and what it meant to bring it up. And also in the quarter, to the extent there's interest in the data center piece, we do have that new GM talking about the data center piece, the segment that we're targeting, and some early details on good markets.

speaker
Operator

Thank you. And as a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, if you do have a question at this time, please press star 1-1. Our next question comes from the line of Leisha Zak from HSBC. Your question, please.

speaker
Leisha Zak
Analyst, HSBC

Hi, Siva. Hi, Kevin. Thank you so much for taking my question. I just wanted to touch a little bit on the new vertical. Do you have any plans to expand the business into other different verticals. I'm thinking about consumer and how the technology you're developing fits well into it, but I'm just wondering if the new business verticals, like, you know, the data centers and aerospace, in a sense, will be your main focus along with automotive, or are you open to exploring other opportunities?

speaker
Dr. Siva Sivaram
Chief Executive Officer

Vaisha, good to hear from you. Thank you. Yes, is the answer to that question. We have clearly separated out QSEV and we have clearly separated out QSBC, which is the data center business. The advanced solutions business explores all of the other opportunities, including aerospace, defense, medical devices, and consumer electronics and other interesting areas. We do see substantive opportunities for the QS technology platform in many of these, particularly the QSC5 form factor. The existing product can be shipped into many of these products, so we are actively exploring these opportunities as well.

speaker
Leisha Zak
Analyst, HSBC

Okay, thank you so much. And just another follow-up. You have noted in your remarks that AI data centers are transitioning to 800-volt DC designs that are similar to EV architectures. Given that there's an urgent power constraint, actually, that the hyperscalers are facing today, could that mean that QSDC could potentially reach higher volume compensation faster than QSDC because of this very intense or strong demand from the market, which just requires more complex vehicle integration? Does that make sense?

speaker
Dr. Siva Sivaram
Chief Executive Officer

I do understand the question. The fact that the data center market has a lot of need, especially from energy to power. High quality power delivery is one of their biggest bottlenecks. And we, with our high energy and power density and particularly safety, is a great fit for this market, means that there is a lot of opportunity here. So this is the reason we have stood up three verticals, so that we can put the focus on each of these verticals without sacrificing our go-to-market focus on each of these. We will be giving data center, with its 800-volt transition coming up, all the attention to make sure we capture that market as quickly as possible.

speaker
Kevin Hetrick
Chief Financial Officer

And Lesha, if you recall, expanding into high-value markets is one of our four annual goals. Our annual operating plan includes investments into go-to-market and commercialization capability, notably in sales, product management, and engineering. The hiring is going well, and we did reiterate our adjusted EBITDA guidance on this call.

speaker
Leisha Zak
Analyst, HSBC

Okay. Thank you so much, and congrats on the progress. Nice talking to you.

speaker
Operator

Thank you, Alicia. Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of John Sager from Evercore ISI. Your question, please.

speaker
John Sager
Analyst, Evercore ISI

Hey, guys. How are you? Hey, John.

speaker
Operator

Hey, John.

speaker
John Sager
Analyst, Evercore ISI

Wanted to get some additional clarity on the Power Co agreement. So my understanding is that under the old agreement, you had up to $130 million that would be billed through Q2 of 2027. Under this new agreement, it's $75 million through Q2 of 2028. if we're to say like roughly 41 million remaining through Q2 of 28, is that correct? Sorry, 34 million remaining through Q2 of 28? Because you've billed around 40 million so far, I think.

speaker
Kevin Hetrick
Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, you have the up to, correct? We haven't cleanly kind of broken out which portion of that from PowerCo is over time, but we'll just reiterate that you have the basics, right? The up to changed. The forecast expenses also went down, and we see a neutral cash impact when related to the 2025 scope work. That's correct, John.

speaker
John Sager
Analyst, Evercore ISI

And then on the timing for PowerCo, I think the last understanding is that they had said, you know, start a production, begin in 2029. Are you still on track there? And what are the next, like, milestones that we'll kind of hear about as it relates to this partnership so that we can track, like, your progress towards that 2029 date?

speaker
Dr. Siva Sivaram
Chief Executive Officer

So, John, all of our work goes through the Eagle Line. The Eagle Line progress is what determines how quickly we can transfer the technology to PowerCore to take it up there. and we are seeing great progress here. Eagle9 got installed and released in February and from February to now we have integrated all the pieces of the Eagle9 and now making sure they are uptime is high, the productivity is good and now continuing to work on process stability and process control. These are the kind of things that allow us to increase the volume of output which we plan to double in the second half of the year. That allows us the confidence to work with Volkswagen Power Quota Transfer.

speaker
John Sager
Analyst, Evercore ISI

And is 2029 still the target? That is correct. We have not announced any change from our original plans. Okay. And on the two new business lines, if I could ask one more question. What is the focus for those business lines this year? Are you more focused on driving customer demand and JDAs, or are you looking to sort of build out the ecosystem, meaning that, like, first step is kind of you need to sign some more, sign a battery manufacturing partner?

speaker
Dr. Siva Sivaram
Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. So these two new businesses, as they are starting up, the big advantage is that they use the power of the QSC5 platform. The QSC5 platform with its no compromise performance across all aspects is the foundation on which they are built. Our immediate next focus is on go-to-market. We are reinforcing the go-to-market personnel strategies to make sure we are able to service these customers as rapidly as possible. You are right, immediately afterwards, we should be focused on getting volumes out to them.

speaker
John Sager
Analyst, Evercore ISI

Okay, so... First step, customers. Second step, find a partner to do the actual manufacturing.

speaker
Kevin Hetrick
Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, and John, if you recall, in the summer 2025 amendment to the PowerCore collaboration agreement, we expanded capacity of that license up to 85 gigawatt hours, and that incremental 5 gigawatt hours was permitted by VW PowerCore. to go outside of the automotive market. So Powerco is certainly one channel. In the fullness of time, we are engaged with multiple different customers in that QuantumScape Advanced Solutions channel. The Eagle Line is a very powerful capability to do customer sampling, but in the fullness of time, we absolutely will need to add capacity.

speaker
Operator

Okay, thanks. Thank you. And our next question comes from the line. I'm Mark Delaney from Goldman Sachs. Your question, please.

speaker
Ayush Ghosh
Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Hi. You've got Ayush Ghosh on for Mark Delaney. Thank you for taking the questions. And on billings, nice to see the progress there with 2026 billings already exceeding 2025. Can you discuss the outlook for overall customer billings in the second half of the year, maybe relative to the first half?

speaker
Kevin Hetrick
Chief Financial Officer

So thank you. We have made kind of steady progress. Last quarter we added ecosystem partners for the first time. And as you mentioned, we have exceeded the 2025 levels in 2026 now that we're at 21, 28 million. In addition to VW Power Co., as highlighted in this letter, we added Honda, an amazing top 10 OEM partner with strength and engineering, both with an automotive and a broader set of product offerings at the end of a quite extensive kind of diligence and selection process. So we already keep making nice progress there. As I referred to earlier, You should expect customer billings to be a metric that has some variability into it. The things that we control would be to advance the relationships individually and to continue to add additional automotive partners as well as to start to add partners from these new spaces and to increasingly turn it into a portfolio.

speaker
Ayush Ghosh
Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Thank you for that. And one more from me on the sort of non-automotive markets, you know, QSDC and QSAS. And again, nice to see the progress there. Can you discuss some of the timelines you're seeing from customers and production volumes that prospective customers are requesting? And how closely do these specifications align with your, you know, more traditional automotive roadmap? Thank you.

speaker
Dr. Siva Sivaram
Chief Executive Officer

Great question. Now, going back to the prior question, just to finish the thought, Kevin was talking about Honda. Adding another paying customer that we can disclose is actually a big deal that helps us rounding out that portfolio. Now, back on to QSDC and QSAS. The automotive specifications are very well known. Each of the others have their own unique spec needs. For instance, Safety is across the board very, very, very important to all of them. Especially in a data center right next to very high value GPUs, safety is extremely critical. Power, especially in the case of data center, it is discharge power that is needed. In the case of the data center, again, low temperature operation is not important, but higher temperature operation is important. in the case of military applications that we are looking at, not losing capacity while being able to discharge substantive power is an important characteristic. These are what we claim credit on the QSC-5 platform, that it is a no compromise platform that is able to supply power without losing capacity, etc. So you can see that these new businesses, new verticals, are complementary and they play off of the basic capabilities of the platform. Thank you.

speaker
Operator

Thank you. And as a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, if you do have a question at this time, please press star 11 on your telephone. And our next question comes from the line of Winnie Dong from Deutsche Bank. Your question, please.

speaker
Winnie Dong
Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Hi, thanks so much for taking my question. First one is about Honda. I was wondering if you can sort of describe the next steps to securing a DL light particle for Honda and any sort of high-level timelines you have going on internally.

speaker
Dr. Siva Sivaram
Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Vinny. As you know, Honda is renowned for their engineering expertise. They have spent a lot of money on solid-state battery development already. They have a large pilot facility. They came in and did an incredibly deep evaluation of the technology and saw the synergies, how their core investments can be leveraged with our architecture. The ceramic is common. the Japanese ecosystem that exists that we have spent so much time creating. They all go together with the ceramic, the separator and the lithium metal anode free architecture. They clearly see that this is the way for them to enhance their solid state portfolio across all of their products. So immediate job is to move this joint development into the next level of development and move it along the same template that we have developed with PowerCore Volkswagen. So we can move very quickly across their product portfolio.

speaker
Winnie Dong
Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Got it. Thank you so much. And then on the QSDC and QSAS, I was wondering if you can perhaps talk about some specific milestones that you guys have in mind for those two business lines. For instance, Would it be like shipping cells to the data center customers or some form of partnership or any sort of announcement that we expect to see this year or perhaps into next year? Thanks.

speaker
Dr. Siva Sivaram
Chief Executive Officer

So, Vinny, yes, you will see announcements from us on both of these and that will give you a timeline. But on a general sense, I can use QSDC as an example. The 800-volt transition is in front of us. The megawatt rack also is just ahead of us. These all are going to be deployed in data centers towards the end of 2028, which means we need to be ahead of that with respect to developing an integrated product and delivering it to them. So you can see natural deadlines developing when these transitions are happening in the marketplace.

speaker
Winnie Dong
Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Okay, great. Thank you so much.

speaker
Operator

Thank you, Vinny. Thank you. This does conclude the question and answer session of today's program. I'd like to hand the program back to Siva for any further remarks.

speaker
Dr. Siva Sivaram
Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, operator. I'd like to recognize the entire QS team for their execution and to thank our shareholders for their continued support. We look forward to updating you on our programs in the months ahead. Thank you.

speaker
Operator

Thank you ladies and gentlemen for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Good day.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

Q2QS 2026

-

-