Volkswagen-backed solid-state battery startup QuantumScape announced a major milestone in the scale-up of its production capabilities: the successful integration of its advanced Cobra separator process into baseline cell production.
Cobra forms the foundation of QS’s high-throughput, continuous-flow separator production platform. Designed to enable faster, more energy-efficient production with a smaller equipment footprint compared to earlier processes, Cobra represents a step-change improvement in ceramic separator manufacturing.
Compared to the prior-generation Raptor process, Cobra offers a ~25x improvement in heat treatment speed and occupies a fraction of the physical space per film start – key advantages in the design of a scalable gigafactory production line.
“Our team has made impressive strides in advancing Cobra, a technology that exemplifies our progress in scaling solid-state battery production,” said Dr. Siva Sivaram, QS CEO. “By significantly improving throughput and shrinking the equipment footprint, Cobra gives us a powerful path forward for commercializing our next-generation battery technology.”
“Cobra is a step-change innovation in ceramic processing, enabling a major improvement in productivity compared to Raptor — which was already a considerable advancement compared to the previous generation,” said Tim Holme, QS co-founder and CTO. “This advancement is central to bringing our high-performance solid-state battery platform to market at gigawatt scale.”
The Cobra platform replaces the company’s Raptor process, which was used for B0 cell production and delivered important gains in separator quality and process stability. With Cobra in place as the new baseline, QS will continue to improve its production speed, efficiency and scalability, laying the groundwork for higher-volume B1 sample production. These production metrics are expected to further improve as the company introduces future iterations of Cobra.
