管理層發言
Thank you for standing by, and welcome to QuantumScape's Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, today's program is being recorded. And now I'd like to introduce your host for today's program, Sam Kamara, QuantumScape's Senior Director, Investor Relations. You may begin, sir.
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 and to 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 factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from the content of our forward-looking statements for the reasons that we set forth in our shareholder letter, our 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, Kevin Hettrich. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Siva.
Thank you. I'd like to start by discussing our automotive commercialization progress. This quarter, we announced a partnership with Honda. This is a multiyear 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 the anode-free lithium metal architecture enables QuantumScape to provide solutions to unlock the full potential of solid-state 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 and PowerCo, with a set of milestones and payments focused on automotive cell development, large 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. 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: QS EV for electric vehicles, QS DC for AI data centers, and QSAS for advanced solutions for applications including aerospace and defense. QS EV is working with auto OEMs around the world, including Volkswagen and Honda. QS DC is engaged with ODMs to design solutions based on QS-5 technology for the fast-moving AI data center market. QSAS has shipped QS-5 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, in assets, 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 yields are showing up 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 QuantumScape 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. First, 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 valued. 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 nonflammable and noncombustible, 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 large-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 often stops at 200 degrees. We are pleased to report that larger scale testing continues to show that QS-5 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 QS-5. 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 designs, which shows the flexibility and scalability of our ceramic separator technology to meet customer requirements. Lastly, I want to take a step back and look at the big picture. QuantumScape 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 defense strategies. And AI is unlocking new capabilities for businesses and people across 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 technological transformations. QS DC is working to capitalize on exciting high-value opportunities in the AI data center market. QSAS is engaging customers in high-value aerospace and defense applications. With QS EV, we are advancing automotive commercialization with 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 our future technology roadmap 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 the industry later 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.
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 GAAP net loss and adjusted EBITDA is available in the financial statements 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 lowered 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 have achieved this goal. Customer billings in Q2 were $10.8 million. Total customer billings through Q2 2026 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 the 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 U.S. 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.
Thanks, Kevin. We will begin today's Q&A portion with a few questions we received from investors that I believe would interest investors. First, we are now halfway through 2026. What proof points should investors evaluate to know if QuantumScape is on track to our annual goals?
Goal #1 is to demonstrate scalable production with the Eagle line. Taking a unique technology on a highly automated process from the ceramic separator to the unit cell to the fully assembled QS-5 cell that meets customer requirements is a significant challenge. We are making strong operational progress and remain on track. Goal #2 is to advance automotive commercialization with QS EV. 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 PowerCo collaboration and licensing arrangement with milestones for automotive cell development, and we shipped cells to an additional automotive OEM in this past quarter. Goal #3 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 QS DC and QSAS. QS DC is engaging with data center architects to provide solutions for this fast-growing market. QSAS has shipped QS-5 cells to a major American defense prime and we are engaged with global customers in aerospace, defense and other advanced applications. Goal #4 is to go beyond QS-5 with our future technology roadmap. This quarter, we showed larger format separators from COBRA, which enables higher energy density cells. We have 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. We're making the progress I 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. We are now organized into three business verticals — what is our approach to serving automotive and non-automotive markets? 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 can all be 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 QSAS customers, this may not be the case. They are fast-moving; the number of customers is large; go-to-market channels are different. 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 QuantumScape ecosystem, which adds value to our customers across all verticals.
Siva, what should investors take away from the recent updates to the VW and PowerCo relationship? And how do they reflect the progress being made towards commercialization?
The relationship with Volkswagen PowerCo 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 US technology and transfer the technology to Volkswagen PowerCo 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.
From a financial perspective, customer billings under the 2025 VW PowerCo collaboration agreement represented a cost share for QuantumScape expenses incurred under the agreed scope of work. Under the new scope of work, we've aligned 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 8-K on file for more information.
分析師問答
We are now ready to begin the live portion of today's call. Operator, please open up the line for questions.
So firstly, on the updated PowerCo 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. 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 the timing or achievability?
The Volkswagen PowerCo agreements, we have updated each year. We have done that three years in a row. As the relationship progresses, we update the milestones based on the work 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 future technology milestones that we need to achieve, et cetera. There is not anything philosophically different about the objectives of the joint program.
Got it. Okay. And Kevin, you mentioned a neutral impact to cash flow, the lower expenses for the project offsetting the lower cash inflow. But is there any impact to the $130 million royalty 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?
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've laid out in the letter, we've made nice progress, as we've outlined with the Eagle line and also with the demonstration of those larger separators coming off of our COBRA line.
Our next question for today comes from the line of Ethan McKelly from TD Cowen.
So a super quick question. You guys highlighted QSAS, the shipments of the QS-5 cells in the quarter. 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 deferral of milestones that might have freed up some incremental capacity that allowed those shipments? Just trying to get a better understanding of how that ramp is progressing on yields, line time, 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?
Ethan, great question. The answer is yes. The Eagle line is improving in productivity — as you would expect, taking a brand-new, unique technology into a highly automated line and getting the product out to meet customer demand is a difficult challenge. We've been making very good progress on the Eagle line through the last three months since we installed the line in February. This increased volume provides three major benefits. A, clearly it gives us more samples to ship to customers; B, the higher volume allows us to learn rapidly; and C, 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 ship out of the Eagle line for customer demand in the U.S. defense market.
Super helpful. On QS DC 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. Just trying to get an understanding of the timeline as to when samples start hitting them and how quickly the conversion rate might be relative to the automotive side of the business now?
Yes, QS DC 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 capture higher value in our integration in the product. This is all coming together very rapidly. We have a new General Manager for the business. The team is getting ramped up very quickly.
Perfect. And then if I could sneak one final one in before jumping into more mechanics: on the Q2 billings of $10.8 million, how much of that was PowerCo because I'm trying to square up maybe the $75 million 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.
Thank you for the question. We don't as a practice break out the billings into finer detail by counterparty. I would mention that as part of our annual goals, we have a number of customer-facing ones. One is advanced automotive collaboration — 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 the 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. One other brief plug on the Eagle line: we did put out a video today between our COO, Luca, and his VP of Automation Hardware talking about the importance of the line and what it meant to bring it up. And also in the quarter, if 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 go-to-market.
Our next question comes from the line of Laisha Zaack Carrillo from HSBC.
I just wanted to touch a little bit on the new verticals. 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 would flow into it, but I'm just wondering if the new business verticals like data centers and aerospace will be your main focus along with automotive? Or are you open to exploring other opportunities?
Yes, the answer to that question is yes. We have clearly separated our QS EV, and we have clearly separated our QS DC, 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 QS-5 form factor. The existing product can be shipped into many of these products. So we are actively exploring these opportunities as well.
Okay. And just another follow-up. You have noted in the remarks that data centers are transitioning to 800-volt designs that are similar to EV architectures. Given the energy constraints hyperscalers are facing today, could that mean that QS-5 could potentially reach higher volume commercialization faster than EVs because of this urgent demand and simpler integration compared to complex vehicle integration? Is that a fair assessment?
I do understand the question. The fact that the data center market has a lot of need, especially around energy and power delivery, is one of their biggest bottlenecks. Our combination of high energy and power density and particularly safety is a great fit for this market, which means there is a lot of opportunity here. 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 them. We will give data centers the attention required to capture that market as quickly as possible.
And lastly, if you recall, expanding into high-value markets is one of our four annual goals in our operating plan and 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.
Our next question comes from John Sager from Evercore. Sacrificing our go-to-market focus on each of them is not an option. We will give data centers the attention required to capture that market as quickly as possible. Kevin Hettrich, CFO: And lastly, if you recall, expanding into high-value markets is one of our four annual goals in our operating plan and includes investments in 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.
Wanted to get some additional clarity on the PowerCo agreement. My understanding is 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. So if we say roughly $41 million remaining through Q2 '28, is that correct? Sorry, $34 million remaining through Q2 '28 because you billed around $40 million so far, I think.
You have the basics right. We haven't clearly broken out which portion of that is over time in finer detail on the call. But I would just reiterate that the forecasted expenses also went down and we see a neutral cash impact when related to the 2025 scope of work.
And then on the timing with PowerCo: I think the last understanding is that they had said start of production would begin — are you still on track there? And what are the next milestones that we'll hear about as it relates to this partnership so that we can track your progress towards that 2029 date?
John, all of our work flows through the Eagle line. The Eagle line progress is what determines how quickly we can transfer the technology to partners and scale up. We are seeing great progress here. The Eagle line was installed and released in February. From February to now, we have integrated all the pieces of the Eagle line and are now making sure uptime is high, productivity is good and we continue to work on process stability and process control. These are the kinds of things that allow us to increase the volume of output, which we plan to double in the second half of the year, and that gives us the confidence to work with Volkswagen and PowerCo on transfer.
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, what's the focus for those business lines this year? Are you more focused on driving customer demand and JDAs, or are you looking to build out the ecosystem, meaning that the first step is to sign a manufacturing partner?
John, these two new businesses use the power of the QS-5 platform. The QS-5 platform, with its no-compromise performance across all aspects, is the foundation on which they are built. Our immediate next focus is go-to-market. We are reinforcing market personnel and strategies to make sure we are able to service these customers rapidly. Immediately afterwards, we will focus on getting volumes out to them.
And John, if you recall, in the summer 2025 amendment to the Power collaboration agreement, we expanded capacity under that license up to 85 gigawatt hours — and that incremental capacity was permitted by VW PowerCo 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 the 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.
Our next question comes from the line of Ayush Ghose on behalf of Mark Delaney from Goldman Sachs.
You've got me for Mark Delaney. 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?
Thank you. We have made steady progress. Last quarter, we added ecosystem partners for the first time. As you mentioned, we have exceeded the 2025 levels in 2026, now that we're at $21.8 million. In addition to VW PowerCo, as highlighted in this letter, we added Honda, an amazing top 10 OEM partner with strength in engineering, both within automotive and a broader set of product offerings at the end of a quite extensive diligence and selection process. So we are going to keep making nice progress there. As I referred to earlier, you should expect customer billings to be a metric that has some variability. The things that we control are to advance 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.
One more for me. On the non-automotive markets, QS DC and QSAS, can you discuss some of the timelines you're seeing from customers and the production volumes prospective customers are requesting? How closely do these specifications align with your more traditional automotive roadmap?
Good question. Automotive specifications are well known. Each of the other markets have their own unique spec needs. For instance, safety is across the board extremely important. In data centers, safety is critical because these cells will be installed adjacent to high-value GPUs; power delivery is also essential. In data centers, high-temperature operation and stable thermal performance can be more important than low-temperature operation. For military and aerospace applications, not losing capacity while delivering substantive power is an important characteristic. These are strengths of the QS-5 platform: it is a no-compromise platform that is able to supply power without losing capacity. So these new verticals are complementary and they play off the basic capabilities of the platform.
Our next question comes from the line of Winnie Dong from Deutsche Bank.
First on Honda: I was wondering if you can sort of describe the next steps to securing a deal like this with Honda — any sort of high-level timelines you have been operating on internally?
Thank you. As you know, Honda is renowned for their engineering expertise. They have spent a lot building their battery development capabilities. 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 separator fits well with the Japanese ecosystem we've spent so much time creating; they align with our ceramic separator and the lithium metal anode-free architecture. They clearly see that this is a way for them to enhance their solid-state portfolio across their products. So the immediate job is to move this joint development into the next level and move it along the same template that we have developed with Volkswagen and PowerCo. That lets us move very quickly across their product portfolio.
Got it. And on QS DC and QSAS, can you talk about some specific milestones that you have in mind for those two business lines? For instance, would milestones be shipping cells to data center customers, forming partnerships, or other announcements we can expect to see this year or into next year?
Yes, you will see announcements from us on both of these, and those will give you timelines. But in a general sense, I can use QS DC as an example. The 800-volt transition is in front of us. The megawatt rack is also just ahead of us. These will 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. So you can see natural deadlines developing when these transitions are happening in the marketplace.
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.
Thank you. I'd like to recognize the entire QuantumScape team for their execution and to thank our shareholders for their continued support. We look forward to updating you on our progress in the months ahead. Thank you.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Good day.