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spk06: Good day and welcome to QuantumScape's second quarter 2022 earnings conference call. John Sager, QuantumScape's head of investor relations. You may begin your conference.
spk05: Thank you, operator. Good afternoon and thank you to everyone for joining QuantumScape's second quarter 2022 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 co-founder, CEO, and chairman, Jagdeep Singh, and our CFO, Kevin Hetrick. Jagdeep will provide a strategic update on the business, and then Kevin will cover the financial results and our outlook in more detail. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Jagdeep.
spk01: Thank you, John, and thanks, everyone, for joining us. Building on the momentum of our previously reported single, 4, 10, and 16-layer cells, we're pleased to report we've now made our first prototype 24-layer cells and put them on test. These cells are generally showing early cycling and capacity retention behavior similar to our previously published data. This is an important result because as we have previously indicated, the 24 layer cells represent A sample candidates for some automotive OEMs and delivering such cells to an automotive customer remains one of our key goals for the year. Making 24 layer cells that are good enough to deliver to customers is a high bar and one we still need to meet. Doing so requires that we make cells with sufficient performance and quality to meet our standards and in sufficient quantities to complete the validation process and ship them to a customer. During the quarter, we encountered a number of challenges related to the quality and throughput of our production processes. These challenges ranged from discovery of a contaminant in our material to identifying defects introduced during the production process. While we have successfully addressed a number of these, we continue to work through others. We're encouraged by the fact that despite these challenges, our team has been able to make progress on 24 of their prototype cells, and we remain focused on the key goal of delivering such A-sample cells to one or more customers by year end. Note that our prospective customers have distinct requirements, so the precise definition of an A-sample will vary from customer to customer. Delivery of the A-sample represents the beginning of the automotive qualification process. In our shareholder letter, we provide more detail on that process and how we currently see it unfolding over the coming years. In addition to multilayering progress, This quarter, we made strides on improving cell quality. For any given quality metric, performance falls on a spectrum, and improving the quality distribution means moving the entire spectrum towards higher quality. To achieve this goal, we're working to implement a variety of quality improvements to our processes and materials, including advances in separator manufacturing and the implementation of our second-generation Cathalite, as detailed in the shareholder letter. an update on the manufacturing front. For context, our cell manufacturing process has many similarities to conventional lithium ion cell manufacturing, and the proprietary parts can largely be grouped into two main tasks, separator production and cell assembly. A key ongoing goal of our phase one engineering line is to improve the quality, consistency, and throughput of our separator production, and the first goal of our phase two engineering line is to do the same for cell assembly. We're pleased to report that our phase two engineering line is now operational and cell assembly has been transitioned to this line. Located at QS campus, the phase two line benefits from six times more floor space for cell assembly, increasing flexibility to iterate on our process, expand automation and inline metrology, and add more cell assembly lines as we continue to scale our production. This quarter, we achieved a peak of greater than 5,000 weekly separator film starts. To improve the quality distribution of our cells, we've been using much of our separator production capacity to baseline the quality improvements I mentioned earlier. While we don't expect linear increases in starts each quarter, we retain our goal of achieving peak weekly starts of 8,000 before the end of the year. On the customer front, We continue to collaborate closely with Volkswagen as we work to bring our technology to market. Our collaboration with Volkswagen's engineering teams has intensified in recent months with regular technical and product development meetings. Their expertise has proved especially valuable as we build competence in mass manufacturing. In addition to Volkswagen Group and our previously announced deals, we're pleased to report two additional customer sampling agreements with automotive OEMs. We've now announced agreements with six prospective automotive customers, from global top 10 manufacturers by revenue to premium performance and luxury automakers, encompassing both pure EV and conventional OEMs. We've engaged with companies we believe provide us with a strategic mix across geographic footprint and vehicle segment. This breadth of customer engagement gives us confidence that demand for next generation solid state lithium metal batteries remains robust across the automotive industry. And if we can accomplish our goals, the scope of the opportunity ahead of us remains compelling. Before I pass things over to Kevin, a few concluding remarks. This quarter has been both rewarding and challenging. Despite facing the hurdles I mentioned earlier, the team has made significant strides in cell development, manufacturing, and customer engagement. We're grateful for the exceptional focus and discipline the team has shown through the challenges of delivering on a never-before-realized technology and the commitment of our automotive partners to help us bring this technology to market. We remain focused on our key goal of delivering a 24-layer A-sample to an automotive customer this year and look forward to reporting on continued progress in the coming months.
spk04: Kevin? Thank you, Jagdeep. In the second quarter, our operating expenses were $96 million. Our gap net loss for the quarter was $95 million. This level of spend was in line with our expectations entering the quarter. Cash operating expenses, defined as operating expenses less stock-based compensation and depreciation, were $60 million for the quarter. For full year 2022, We continue to expect cash operating expenses to be in the range of $225 million to $275 million as we support additional hiring and increased production volumes on our engineering lines. In line with previous guidance, we forecast OpEx to grow steadily during 2022 and 2023 OpEx to grow modestly from 2022 levels. As we slow our headcount growth rate, reallocate resources from development to manufacturing, and realized gains from investments into automation. CapEx in the second quarter was approximately $28 million. Approximately 40% of our Q2 CapEx went towards our Phase II engineering line, 40% towards QS0 and the QS campus build-out, and 20% towards our Phase I engineering line. This level of CapEx spend was below our guidance range of $35 million to $65 million, as we are actively working to prioritize investment into critical milestones while conserving cash to maintain flexibility through the current difficult macroeconomic environment. Drivers of lower CapEx spend varied by project and included deliberate postponements to refine equipment specifications, delays imposed by supply chain factors or technical challenges, as discussed in the shareholder letter, realized cost savings, and improved visibility into order times. An example of realized savings was the facility CapEx to support our phase two engineering line. In this case, value engineering and insourcing construction activities help these specific projects come in below budget. These drivers also impact full-year CapEx projections, and we now estimate our capital expenditures to be between $175 million and $225 million for full-year 2022. We believe most of the reduction in our forecasted 2022 CapEx spend will now be pushed out into 2023. Despite the lower capex spend in 2022, we remain focused on achieving our goals for the year, including delivery of a sample prototype cells to a customer, demonstration of a cell format designed to accommodate lithium plating and stripping, scale up of peak film starts to 8,000 per week, and taking delivery of the majority of QS0 equipment towards a 2023 line start. We note that on the last goal, There is a distinction between equipment sufficient to allow us to make the first cells on the pre-pilot line and equipment required to make significantly higher volumes. We believe we remain on track with respect to the former, but expect some of the tools required for the latter to be received in 2023. With respect to cash, we spent $79 million on operations and CapEx in the second quarter. We now expect to enter 2023 with over $950 million in liquidity. above previous guidance of over 800 million. With that, I'll pass it over to you, John.
spk05: Thanks, Kevin. We'll begin today's Q&A portion with a few questions we've received from investors and analysts over the Say app and in our IR inbox. We received many questions around our timeline. In this quarter, we spent some time discussing that in more depth in the shareholder letter. So, Jagdeep, can you give any more color on when our technology will be fully developed and timeline more broadly?
spk01: Yeah, so John, our goal is to get this technology to market as quickly as possible. On today's call, we wanted to update our view of the timeline going forward. Our timeline is gated by a number of factors, some of which we control and some of which we don't. For example, like other companies, we're always vulnerable to unexpected supply chain disruptions. There are also product and process development risks, as well as the need to specify, order, and qualify production tooling. And subject to these uncertainties, as we said in the letter, We're currently targeting approximately 18 months between the A and B sample, to the A sample and prototype B sample cells, which may use some low volume processes. And we anticipate a similar timeframe to go from B sample to C samples. However, given the unequivocal demand we see from customers, the differentiated performance of our prototype cells, and the strength of our balance sheet, we believe the opportunity ahead of us remains uniquely compelling.
spk05: Okay, great. You know, another topic we've spoken a lot about is the competitive landscape. Someone on the say app this quarter asked, will lithium ion batteries be able to bridge the gap to solid state over the next five years?
spk01: Yeah, so relative to conventional lithium ion cells, we don't believe it's possible to achieve a dramatic increase in performance without a change in chemistry. We believe our approach, based on a solid state surrounding separator and an in situ formed anode of pure metallic lithium, can deliver between 900 and 1,000 watt-hours per liter, while simultaneously enabling 15-minute charge. And those are targets we don't believe are achievable with conventional chemistries. Now, relative to next-generation automotive chemistries, such as lithium metal or solid-state, we haven't seen anyone show data comparable to what we've published, which includes the ability to run 800 charge-to-start cycles at a one-hour rate of charge at room temperature and modest pressure, and what we refer to as the gold standard test conditions. And we've shown data in single, four, and 10-layer cells. But of course, we do need to do more work to scale up the high layer counts and production throughputs. We're targeting 24 layers for our first A samples, which of course we plan to ship later this year. And while we're pleased that we showed early progress on these cells today, I want to note that we're not done with this development.
spk05: OK, great. We had another investor ask a question. Does QuantumScape need to make perfectly uniform, totally defect-free separators for your cell's work?
spk01: So the short answer is no, we don't. In fact, the baseline process we show in the quality improvement section of our letter, which shows a number of non-uniformities, has already produced separators that have delivered the industry-leading results we've shown so far. including cycling on those gold standard test conditions, as well as repeated 15-minute charge performance. So the key is knowing which defects matter and which ones don't, and to focus on the former, not the latter. And based on the many years of experience we've gained with this system and with solid-state in general, we believe we've gained a lot of learnings in this topic, and this is actually a key part of our IP, our intellectual property. That said, if you think of the quality distribution as a bell curve, for example, What we're trying to do is shift the entire curve to the higher quality end of the spectrum, because we believe improving the quality distribution of our materials raises the performance, scalability, and the reliability of ourselves.
spk05: Okay, great. We'll switch gears a little bit now, and this next one's for Kevin. We've said that we plan to be strategic around fundraising and careful with capital spending in general. How should investors think about our funding and forecast cash run right now?
spk04: Thank you for the question, John. We ended Q2 22 with approximately $1.28 billion in liquidity and forecast exiting 2022 with over $950 million in liquidity and forecast our cash runway extending through the end of 2024. This, we believe, provides sufficient capex to complete our second phase engineering and pre-pilot QS0 lines. which we believe will be capable of producing our B samples and initial C samples. This also includes OPEX to run the lines, generate samples to engage in customer qualification, and continue process development working towards broader commercialization. To support subsequent expansion of the business, we'd anticipate raising funding between now and the end of 24, and plan to be strategic on the form, timing, and amount.
spk05: Okay, great. Some investors have asked how Volkswagen's creation of Powerco affects QuantumScape and our relationship with Volkswagen.
spk01: Our relationship with Volkswagen dates back to 2012, spans multiple CEOs, and we've worked with Frank Bloma, who's the CEO of Powerco, for many years, including as a member of our board of directors. We have a tremendous amount of respect for Frank's battery knowledge and operational experience, and more important, more importantly, a high degree of trust with Frank. Given that the core of Powerco is the former battery center of excellence within VW, which is a group we've been working with since its inception, we expect this transition to be quite natural.
spk05: Okay, great. And then we had two questions come in from Jose Acemendi of JP Morgan. His first question is, Which technical milestones are you looking to achieve in the next six months, and what has been the largest technical challenge you had to overcome to develop the 24-layer cell?
spk01: Yeah, so the most important milestone we're looking to achieve in the next six months is, of course, delivery of the A sample. This kicks off the automotive qualification process and, in our view, represents a substantial risk reduction to our path forward. Relative to the largest technical challenge we faced last quarter, I would say it was the discovery of the contaminant in our material that we referenced in the letter. And of course, through some great work on the part of the QS metrology team, we were able to identify the composition of this contaminant, and this allowed us to work to resolve it.
spk05: Okay, great. Jose's second question was, with regards to Volkswagen and the recently launched new battery company structure, has this changed in any form your collaboration with the firm? Is there any additional color you can provide on the collaboration?
spk01: So relative to the collaboration, we've been collaborating more closely with VW in recent months with more frequent technical and program management meetings. But relative to the nature of the collaboration itself, we haven't announced any changes.
spk05: Okay. Thanks so much, guys. We're now ready to begin the Q&A portion of today's call. Operator, please open the line for questions.
spk06: Absolutely. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If for any reason you'd like to remove that question, please press star two. As a reminder, if you're using a speakerphone, please remember to pick up your handset before asking your question. We'll pause here for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Our first question is from the line of Winnie Dong with Deutsche Bank. Winnie, your line is open.
spk07: provide a bit more detail on possibly the items or tasks that you're pushing out, which is leading to the lower capex spending for the year. You know, specifically what kind of, you know, supply chain factors, I know you mentioned the technical challenges that you're facing, but what kind of supply chain factors are you considering that's pushing that up? Thanks.
spk04: Winnie, thank you for the question. If you compare The annual guidance from last quarter of 325 to 375 million, take the midpoint of 350 and compare it to the current 175 to 225, midpoint of 200. We are seeing pushing approximately the bulk of that 150 million into 23, which is, I think, what you're asking about. The primary drivers were the deliberate postponement to refine specification. We had execution buffers in our goals in 22. And while we still target achieving those 22 goals in 22, we have used up much of that buffer, and that has delayed the ordering of equipment gated by technical development. And an example of that would be some aspects of the cell assembly, which would be gated by high confidence in the proprietary cell design. Another example would be We made changes in some of our separator processes in the quarter to improve quality and reliability. And we wanted to incorporate those process changes into some of our tooling that automates one of our separator processes. And when you combine those postponements and ordering with supply chain headwinds facing the industry, that's what's resulted in our updated capital forecast.
spk07: OK, got it. Separately, I was wondering if you can remind us again what's required to go from A sample to B sample. You mentioned the 18 month time frame that you're sort of targeting and similar time frame from B to C as well. Could you remind us sort of like the steps that or what are the tasks that you need to sort of accomplish to go from A to B? Thank you.
spk01: Yeah, so this is Jackie, but I can take that one. Generally speaking, the A sample is whatever the automotive OEM thinks they need to see in order to convince them that the product basically is capable of delivering the functionality they want. So that obviously will vary by OEM. Every OEM will have a different definition of that. The B sample typically represents the functionality in the A sample, maybe a little bit more. Some small tweaks are typically okay. but it's typically made using processes that are closer to production processes. Now, they can be on smaller versions of the production tooling, but they're more production-like than the A sample, which can be, you know, completely handmade. And the C sample then is, you know, has all the functionality, has those production processes, and is actually implemented on the production tooling on which you're going to produce the production cells. So, if you think about that definition of a C sample, then clearly the sea sample line depends on the volume of the vehicle that you're trying to serve. So if you're trying to serve a car that makes, you know, a million units a year, that will be a very different type of sea sample line than a car that makes just, you know, like a thousand units a year, right? Because in one case, you know, the tools required are much bigger than the other case. So the sea sample line, the real definition is that it's the line off of which your production cells are coming and how big that line is, is a function of how much, how big a volume you're trying to serve with that line. The only point I'll make is that typically, you know, all these different sample stages have multiple generations, so there might be, you know, multiple A's and B's and C's, and what we said on the call here was the very first B samples that we make, which are the prototype B sample cells, They're, you know, like B-samples, but they're prototypes. Those could come off a line where some of the process steps are lower volume than others. So that's really a summary of our timeline.
spk07: Okay. Thanks. Thanks so much for taking my question.
spk01: Absolutely.
spk06: Thank you, Winnie. Our next question is from the line of Gabe Dowd with Cowen. Gabe, your line is open.
spk02: Thanks, and after you and everybody, thanks for all the prepared remarks. Jack, maybe if we could just try to hone in a little bit more on the timeline. So if it's 18 months between, you know, A, B, and C, and if we think about A this year as being, call it December delivery, so does that put your C sample delivery to late 25 and then You know, maybe QS1 is then stood up in like late 26, early 27. Could you maybe just help us frame that timeline and then progression to QS1, I guess?
spk01: Yeah, so we didn't say anything. Hey, by the way, Gabe, thanks for the question. We didn't say anything about QS1 in the letter. What we did say, though, on the timeline for A, B, and C is exactly what you laid out. So assuming that the A sample happens as we are targeting at the end of this year, And assuming that the gap between A and B and B and C are what we're anticipating, which is, as we said, roughly 18 months, then you're absolutely right. That would put us into the end of 25 for the C sample. Remember, the C sample, of course, is defined as cells coming off of, you know, a production line using production tooling. So, that should be able to be a revenue generating, you know, capability at that point. All we've said about QS1, of course, is it will be sometime after that because you need to have the blueprints for the line, which is really the function. One of the key functions of QS0 is to be able to get all the details around the processes, the tools, the specifications, and so on, so we can order larger versions of those tools and more of them to be able to turn up bigger lines. The thing you don't want to do is start trying to turn up a higher volume production line
spk02: uh before you know you have um you know all the details uh worked out on the tooling because that just it just puts capital at risk and i would say you don't want to do that okay got it uh thanks i think that's helpful and then maybe just as a follow-up i know we're we're kind of focused here on the on the 24 layer but i guess we're just curious if the uh 16 layer did that did that hit 800 cycles and then um and i guess as we are maybe So that's the first part of the question. And then I guess, sorry, back to the 24-layer. Since that is closer to representing an A sample, is there anything you can say on what that looks like on an energy density standpoint? Thanks, guys.
spk01: Yeah, sure. So the 16-layer wasn't an explicit milestone that we had. And we felt like we made enough progress on the 16-layer to where we could move to making 24-layer cells. As you pointed out, we already reported, you know, over 500 cycles in that 16 NIR cells, so we didn't really see a need to continue to work more on that and switched over to 24 NIR cells. And we're actually, as you pointed out, you know, quite pleased to have those first 24 NIR cells, you know, on test already, you know, today in July. You know, that gives us, you know, a number of months to refine the design, incorporate any improvements and still be able to make the A sample target for the end of the year. The energy density we haven't commented on, Gabe. The A sample really isn't going to be the cell with energy densities that are close to the production levels because it doesn't have the right number of layers and the packaging isn't really optimized. All those things are things that we think will happen in connection with the B sample. Absolutely, Gabe.
spk06: Thank you, Gabe. The next question is from the line of Chris Snyder with UBS. Chris, your line is open.
spk03: Hey, thank you, and thanks for taking my question. I wanted to follow up on Gabe's question on the timeline, but with a specific focus on progressing towards QS1. You know, is it fair to assume that the delivery of a C sample, you know, is required for QS1 to be commissioned and move forward? Or could that, you know, checkpoint be met with a B sample? Any color there would be really helpful.
spk01: Yeah, I know this is a great question. I think one of the things that we are thinking at this point is that one of the goals that we think we can meet from the QS0 line itself is to make C samples. And by doing that, we think we can gain a lot of learnings that might otherwise need that one gigawatt hour QS1 line. So basically we think that essentially QS, the C sample coming out of QS0 can deliver to us some of the same learnings that we might otherwise need to do the one gigawatt hour phase one QS1 line, which we think opens the possibility to scaling up subsequent production lines more quickly. So that's certainly our current thinking. And if things go as planned, then that would be the way we'd like to see them unfold.
spk03: Thank you. And, you know, the company is obviously just continues to announce a number of commercial agreements. I mean, I think it's been the general kind of consensus view from the analyst community that QS1 or just the first kind of substantial production facility would be with Volkswagen as the JV and the counterpart. Is there opportunity that the counterparty on the first commercially sized facility could be an OEM other than Volkswagen?
spk01: So we haven't said anything about specifically who else we're going to do JVs with outside of Volkswagen. There obviously is the joint venture with Volkswagen, which is designed to serve the needs of Volkswagen. For the other non-Volkswagen customers, I think there's a couple of different ways to serve them. One, of course, is through this expanded QS0 line, where we produce sea samples off of QS0. That will allow us to serve a certain volume of vehicles, so we wouldn't be able to do super, super high volume type vehicle programs out of that line. but for smaller, perhaps premium, high-performance type of vehicles, that would be one option. The other option, of course, is to do joint ventures like the ones we have with VW with other OEMs. In fact, I think one of the agreements that we announced specifically had a section in there discussing the possibility of a joint venture with that other top 10 automotive OEM, so that's Another possibility. And there are also other opportunities that we're looking at beyond those that might involve other more creative ways to get there. But I think that our main goal is to get this technology into the market as quickly as we can. And we've said in the past, there are basically three sort of general ways to do that. One is to build on factories. I guess QSO is an example of that. It's a small factory, but it's a factory. The second is to partner with OEMs to do JDs. The VWD was an example of that. The third one we referenced in the past occasionally, although we haven't provided any more details on that, is at some point it might make sense to license the core IP. We'd only do that if there's someone that we trust as a partner and where the economics make sense. But those are the three general options, and we don't have any religion around any one of them. We want to basically pursue what makes the most business sense for us, for our investors, for our customers.
spk03: Appreciate that. If I can just squeeze one last one in. Over the past couple of years, the company has produced a very high number of data and test metrics that they've provided to the market. I would just be interested, Jagdeep, amongst all these test metrics, data that you guys produce, which What to you is the most significant, you know, kind of indicator of what you're tracking, you know, whether it just be the company's progression, you know, the technology? You know, I'd just be interested to hear your view. Amongst all this data and test metrics, what do you think is the most important?
spk01: Yeah, it's a great question. I think probably I would say the most significant aspect of the data we published is this notion of what we call the gold standard test conditions, right? So the idea is that this is data showing that these lithium metal cells which obviously are designed for high energy density because the lithium metal anode is more energy dense than the carbon or carbon-silicon hybrid anode. So that opens up the possibility of getting to these 900 to 1,000 one-hour per liter type numbers. But the important point is with that kind of a design, we've demonstrated that you can operate that chemistry with high rates of charge. So we do all of our testing that we've published in recent times at 1C, 1C meaning one-hour charge rate. at room temperature. Recent tests have been at 25 degrees Celsius for inner cycles, as Gabe alluded to in his question earlier, and done in modest pressure. We use no more than approximately 2.4 atmospheres of pressure, and in recent times, we're even dropping pressure below that. So that's the first key point I'd focus on is test results that show that they're done under these gold standard conditions without compromising pressure or temperature or rate or cycle life. The second key thing I'd say on the data front is that we've shown data showing both the ability to run at even higher rates. So we earlier this year published some data on 15-minute charge 400 times in a row. So that's also a really remarkable result. We haven't seen any data from any other lithium metal player that can do that, or for that matter, even lithium ion type players for energy cells. We mean cells that are designed for the highest possible energy, not power cells, which are designed for power. And then I think the third thing that I would point to in terms of data is we keep showing data on increasing layer counts. I think we've steadily, you know, we've kind of tried to keep our nose to the grindstone and just stay focused on the mission, which is to keep increasing layer counts, you know, while trying to maintain that level of functionality. So we went from one layer to four layers to 10 to 16 and now 24 layers, at least the very We're not done with that yet. I want to be careful about that. But those three things combined, I think what gives us, you know, a lot of comfort that we're onto something here, right? The fundamental, you know, data, the gold standard data is very compelling, you know, at a one-hour charge rate for inner cycles. The high rate charge data for single air cells would not be very compelling. And then we try to, you know, take that capability and increase the layer count with that. I think that all of those things are things that we really haven't seen with other approaches to high-energy density automotive lithium metal cells.
spk03: Thank you for all that. I appreciate it.
spk01: Absolutely. Excellent question.
spk06: Thank you, Chris. The next question is from the line of Ben Callow with Baird. Ben, your line is open.
spk00: Hey, good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Congrats on adding two new customer relationships. Maybe could you just talk us through kind of how those relationships span from, you know, like maybe you have just provided them with a sample, you know, cell, like two-layer cell, or how do all the different relationships differ, I guess is the question.
spk01: Yeah, so these relationships are generally quite similar. What they basically are is that they represent effectively a reservation agreement on the part of the OEM to get a certain amount of capacity out of the QS0 line. And then in addition to that, this involves our providing those OEMs with a set of intermediate samples. So we'll provide them samples, you know, before the A sample, the A sample, you know, and subsequent samples leading up to that pre-pilot line. And I think the thing that we're excited about is not only that there's now six such OEMs, but they really represent a broad cross-section of the automotive sector, right? So I mentioned in the letter they represent, you know, top ten players on one hand, as well as non-top 10 but well-established premium luxury type brands. They represent pure EV type players and conventional OEMs. So we have both ends of the spectrum on multiple axes represented. I think we've tried to be, as we said before, strategic about who we work with. We are in the position for better or for worse of being supply constrained right now. There's more demand than we have the ability to provide sales today. Frankly, we think we'll be in that position for some time into the future, but the benefit of that is it allows us to be a little more thoughtful about who we choose to work with, and we try to choose players that we think, you know, encompass the full spectrum of the automotive sector in order to make sure that we have exposure to the whole sector. So I think we feel pretty good about the OEM momentum, and our focus now is really just trying to to, you know, deliver these cells so we can now realize the potential of the opportunity ahead of us.
spk00: Thank you for that. I guess what I was asking is has everyone received something physically to test or is everyone at different stages in their testing where some maybe have just received data and started a relationship there versus others that have tested an actual cell?
spk01: Yeah, so I think, and don't quote me on this, but I think, you know, because I haven't made the full list and looked at it just for this question, but I think every one of these guys, to my knowledge, I would say most of these players have, in fact, received cells at some stage and have already tested them. And, well, I should say, yeah, most of them have. I think not everyone has. But most of them received cells and have tested them. And there are different stages of their process. Obviously, someone like VW, is, you know, further along. We've had that partnership in place for a lot longer. Some of the newer players, you know, we've been announcing players every, you know, at regular intervals in time. So some of them are going to be, you know, at different points in their process. But most of these guys have already received and tested cells, and some of them that haven't will get cells shortly and we'll test them. So the process is moving forward with all these players But they're just at different points in their journeys. Cool.
spk00: Thank you. And the last question, you know, you call out and you highlight the cell manufacturing step being completed. Could you just maybe delve into that a bit more on what that means and how it's changed from how you previously did it? Thank you.
spk01: I think that particular reference was to the Phase 2 line. As you know, we have this Phase 1 engineering line, which was in our older building, and we were turning up a Phase 2 version of the line for additional capacity and capability in our new QS campus facility. We've now turned up that Phase 2 engineering line and transferred production cell assembly to that line. That is an important point because it means that we're actually now making cells in this new facility, which means we put in place the building, the appropriate dry rooms, and the appropriate clean rooms, and the power supply, and people, and all those things have to go into place to be able to make cells. Also in this building then is where we're planning on deploying the rest of QS0, which is the pre-pilot line. Kevin, anything to add to that?
spk04: No, I think that was a good summary, Jake.
spk00: Thank you, guys. Have a good night.
spk01: Absolutely. Thank you, Ben. Thank you, Ben. Yeah, let me just go ahead and close out the call. I want to thank everyone for joining the call. I'd also like to thank our investors for their ongoing support of our mission. I'd like to thank our forward-thinking customers for their commitment to helping us get this technology to market. And, of course, our amazing team for their incredibly dedicated efforts to overcome all the hard problems associated with bringing a groundbreaking new technology to market. We look forward to reporting on further progress in the coming quarters.
spk06: That concludes the QuantumScape Q2 2022 earnings call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.
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