QuantumScape Corporation (NYSE: QS), a leader in advanced battery solutions, has made a major breakthrough in electric vehicle (EV) technology. In partnership with PowerCo SE, the battery arm of the Volkswagen Group, the companies showcased the world’s first live demonstration of a solid-state lithium-metal battery powering a motorcycle.
The event took place at the IAA Mobility conference in Munich, where a Ducati motorcycle equipped with QuantumScape’s cutting-edge QSE-5 battery cells made its debut. This demonstration marks a major milestone in the push toward safer, higher-performing energy storage systems for electric vehicles and beyond.
Why QuantumScape’s Solid-State Battery Is a Game-Changer
QuantumScape’s mission is to transform energy storage. The company highlighted that its next-generation solid-state lithium-metal batteries can potentially improve energy density, charging speed, safety, lifespan, and cost-effectiveness—all areas where traditional lithium-ion batteries face limitations.
The live demo used QSE-5 cells, built with QuantumScape’s proprietary Cobra separator manufacturing process. This process, integrated into full-scale production in June 2025, has dramatically improved performance. According to industry experts, it offers a 25-fold upgrade over the earlier model and a 200-fold improvement compared to 2023 methods.
The QSE-5 battery delivered industry-leading results, including:
- 844 Wh/L energy density – enabling longer driving ranges.
- 12-minute fast charging from 10% to 80% capacity.
- 10C continuous discharge, supporting high performance under stress.
This breakthrough addresses key EV challenges, making batteries safer and more efficient for both consumers and manufacturers.
Dr. Siva Sivaram, CEO and president of QS, said,
“Today we’ve crossed the threshold from possibility to reality. We believe that our partnership with PowerCo, together with Ducati as our demonstration launch partner, positions us to scale our transformative technology to gigawatt-hour production. Our world-leading battery innovation, combined with Ducati’s uncompromising craftsmanship and legendary commitment to performance, will help usher in a new era of electrified transportation.”
Real-World Test on the Racetrack
The demonstration featured a Ducati V21L race motorcycle powered by QuantumScape’s technology. The battery pack, developed by specialists from Audi, another Volkswagen Group brand, was tailored to show how these batteries can perform in extreme conditions.
Thomas Schmall, CEO of Volkswagen Group Components, presented the technology at the event. The racetrack setting was chosen to rigorously test the batteries’ limits. QuantumScape’s cells performed reliably under high loads, showcasing how this technology can meet the demands of future high-performance EVs.
From Lab Discovery to Commercial Reality
This event is a major step in taking solid-state batteries out of the lab and into real-world applications. Solid-state batteries use a solid electrolyte instead of liquid ones, which greatly reduces the risk of overheating, fires, or explosions—common concerns with conventional lithium-ion batteries.
The QSE-5’s anode-free design, paired with advanced separators, gives it advantages in safety and efficiency. If scaled successfully, this technology could become a standard for next-generation EVs and other energy storage solutions.
QuantumScape expects to ship sample cells for testing in 2026. Commercial production could begin between 2027 and 2028, depending on regulatory approvals and manufacturing scaling.
Strategic Partnership and Market Expansion
QuantumScape’s partnership with PowerCo is expanding rapidly. In July 2025, the two companies announced an updated collaboration agreement that includes up to $131 million in milestone-based payments over two years.
This will fund the scaling of production and technology transfer needed to bring QSE-5 cells to global markets.
- Significantly, PowerCo plans to produce up to 5 gigawatt-hours of QSE-5 cells annually, serving customers beyond Volkswagen’s ecosystem.
This opens up new commercial opportunities and strengthens QuantumScape’s position in the global battery supply chain.
Frank Blome, CEO of PowerCo, said,
“The EV revolution is the biggest transformation the automotive industry has ever seen. Solid-state batteries will redefine what’s possible for high-performance, premium vehicles, and today’s historic demonstration is just the beginning. We’re combining QuantumScape’s world-class battery scientists with PowerCo’s manufacturing expertise to bring game-changing solid-state battery technology to the world as soon as possible.”
QS Stock Market Reaction: A Speculative Opportunity
Following the announcement, QuantumScape’s (QS) stock jumped 20% to around $9.50, reflecting investor excitement. As of 2025, the company’s market cap stands at around $4.44 billion.
However, analysts warn that investing in QuantumScape carries significant risks. The technology’s success hinges on scaling production, navigating regulatory approvals, and competing with established battery players.
Solid-State Batteries: Unlocking Safer, Smarter Energy Solutions
Solid-state batteries are seen as the next major leap in energy storage. Compared to lithium-ion batteries, they offer:
- Higher energy density for longer ranges.
- Faster charging capabilities.
- Safer designs that lower fire and explosion risks.
- Longer lifespan with fewer degradation issues.
- Potential for lower costs as manufacturing processes improve.
These features make solid-state technology attractive not only for EVs but also for consumer electronics, renewable energy storage, and medical devices
Global Market Outlook: 2025 and Beyond
As per FortuneBusinessInsights, the global solid-state battery market is projected to experience rapid growth over the coming years.
- In 2024, the market size was valued at around $98.96 million, and it is forecasted to reach $119 million by 2025.
- By 2032, the market could surge to $1.36 billion, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 41.61% between 2025 and 2032.
The Asia Pacific region is leading this growth, holding a 43.76% market share in 2024. Rising adoption of solid-state batteries in consumer electronics, electric vehicles, and renewable energy storage is driving this trend. The consumer electronics segment, in particular, dominated the market last year, with applications far ahead of those in EVs and medical devices.
Investment in this technology is accelerating, with companies like Toyota, BMW, QuantumScape, CATL, and BYD increasing research and development efforts. Government support is also playing a key role in the development of solid-state batteries.
Key Drivers for Adoption
The demand for safer, higher-performance batteries is pushing companies and governments to invest heavily. Additionally, solid-state designs reduce fire risks, offer greater energy density, improve charging speeds, and extend battery lifespan.
These improvements are making solid-state batteries a preferred option across multiple industries, including consumer devices, EVs, medical implants, and renewable energy storage.
With governments backing funding initiatives and industry players scaling up manufacturing, the path to widespread adoption is becoming clearer. The global market is on the cusp of a transformation, and solid-state batteries are at the forefront of this change.
All in all, QuantumScape’s demonstration is a breakthrough in EV battery technology, showcasing its potential to overcome industry challenges. While risks persist, strong partnerships, advanced specs, and rising demand position the company as a leader in energy storage. If scaled successfully, its technology could drive safer, faster, and more efficient batteries for the future of electric mobility.
The post QuantumScape’s Battery Breakthrough Powers Safer EVs – and Sends QS Stock Up 20% appeared first on Carbon Credits.
Most businesses that decide to act on their net-zero targets reach the same point of friction. Buying carbon credits has meant tracking down brokers, sitting through sales calls, and requesting a quote just to learn a price, sometimes with limited proof of what you are buying.
The earnings calls that quietly reframed climate from sustainability question to operating risk.
Three earnings calls in the last 18 months tell the story without any help from a press release.
Hershey, May 2024: cocoa price exposure compresses margin, and the company attributes part of the cost shock to West African weather. Olam, July 2024: coffee climate exposure quantified in the annual report. JBS, January 2025: supply chain climate disclosures expanded materially in response to investor pressure and regulatory expectation. None of these companies issued the announcement as climate news. They issued it as financial news. The climate-linked supply chain risk did not arrive with a sustainability framing; it arrived as a P&L line.
You are probably reading this article because you suspect the same thing is happening to your business. This piece walks through what is showing up on which earnings calls, how procurement and finance leaders are quantifying the exposure, and what serious corporates are doing about it before the regulator asks.
Where climate risk has already appeared in earnings
The pattern is consistent across resource-intensive sectors. A weather event compresses supply, the price spikes, the cost flows through the income statement, and the analyst on the call asks whether the event is anomalous or structural. Increasingly, the honest answer is the second one.
Cocoa is the cleanest example. The 2023 to 2024 West African harvest fell sharply on the back of erratic rainfall and disease. Cocoa futures more than tripled. Companies with concentrated West African sourcing absorbed the cost; companies with diversified sourcing absorbed less. The exposure was not climate as ESG topic. It was climate as cost of goods.
Coffee follows the same pattern. Brazilian and Vietnamese harvests have moved on weather more sharply across the last several seasons. Roasters with long-tenor supplier relationships and origin diversification have managed the volatility; roasters with spot-market exposure have not. Wheat, sugar, palm oil, beef: the same dynamic in different commodities, a pattern the IPCC AR6 Working Group II report projects will intensify across agricultural systems through mid-century.
What this means: climate risk is no longer a footnote in the 10-K. It is a line item the CFO has to explain on the call.
The three commodity exposures that hit margin first
For most companies with material Scope 3 exposure, three exposures dominate the near-term P&L risk.
- Concentrated single-origin sourcing in a climate-vulnerable region. If your tier-one supply for any material commodity sits in one geography, you have a concentration risk that climate amplifies. Diversification across origins is the obvious hedge, but it takes years to build and requires relationships you cannot acquire by tender.
- Supplier financial fragility under climate stress. Smallholder farmers, who supply a large share of the global cocoa, coffee, and palm oil market, do not carry the balance sheets to absorb yield shocks. When yields collapse, they exit. When they exit, your supply base shrinks, and the surviving suppliers raise prices. The risk is structural, not cyclical.
- Logistics and storage exposure to extreme weather. Hurricane disruptions to Gulf shipping, drought-driven Panama Canal restrictions, flooding in European inland waterways: each of these has moved input costs in the last three years, a pattern documented in Munich Re’s natural catastrophe data. The exposure shows up as a one-quarter event in the financial press but accumulates over time on the cost line.
TCFD and ISSB disclosure changes
The disclosure architecture has now caught up with the risk. The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, whose recommendations are now embedded in the ISSB’s IFRS S2 climate standard, requires companies to disclose climate-related risks across physical and transition categories, with quantification where possible.
For physical risk specifically (the climate-linked supply chain risk you are reading about), the disclosure must address both acute exposures (extreme weather events) and chronic exposures (gradual changes in temperature, precipitation, and growing seasons). The disclosure must address the time horizon over which the risk is material, the parts of the value chain exposed, and the financial impact under different scenarios.
The CSRD imposes similar requirements under European law, with double materiality (both financial and impact materiality) embedded in the assessment. The practical effect: your auditors and your investor relations team now need a defensible answer to the climate-linked supply chain risk question, and the answer needs to be quantified.
What procurement and finance can do now
Three actions matter near-term.
Map your exposure. Most companies do not have a clear view of which tier-one and tier-two suppliers sit in which climate-vulnerable geographies. Without the map, you cannot quantify the risk, and without the quantification, you cannot disclose it credibly. The map is the foundation, and World Resources Institute climate risk research provides useful public tooling to start.
Diversify and deepen, in that order. Diversification across origins reduces concentration risk, but the deeper move is to invest in the resilience of the suppliers you already have. Regenerative practices, agroforestry, soil health interventions: these reduce yield volatility under climate stress and protect your input cost trajectory.
Embed the climate spend inside procurement, not outside it. Treating climate risk as a sustainability cost line subordinates it to the ESG budget. Treating it as a procurement and resilience investment puts it in the budget that matters, which is the cost-of-goods budget that the CFO defends quarterly.
Nature-based supply chain investments are the asset class designed for exactly this purpose. They sit inside the value chain, they reduce climate-linked supply risk, they generate verifiable Scope 3 reductions, and they produce the documentation an auditor and a regulator can both test.
If you are quantifying climate-linked supply chain risk in advance of the next earnings cycle or the next disclosure period, the carbon and sustainability experts at Carbon Credit Capital can help you map your exposure and structure a Dual-Value Model response that addresses reduction, resilience, and disclosure-readiness in a single program. Schedule a consultation.
More and more small and medium-sized businesses are hearing the same question from their larger customers: What is your carbon footprint? That question now travels down entire supply chains, and it arrives next to tender requirements, certification criteria, and rising customer expectations.
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