The Electric: An Executive Departure Rocks a Highly Touted Battery Maker

For almost two years, QuantumScape, a prominent U.S. next-generation battery company, has counseled investors to be patient while it builds factories to manufacture lithium-metal batteries that would increase electric vehicle range by up to 50%. By 2024 or 2025, it said, its batteries will be ready to power electric automobiles made by Volkswagen, its main industry backer. But after the close of trading on Wall Street last Friday, QuantumScape said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that Celina Mikolajczak, an engineering veteran of Tesla and Uber whom the company had hired last August to lead the manufacturing scale-up, was stepping down. All of a sudden, QuantumScape’s ambitious timeline looked less certain. On Monday, Wall Street responded by hammering the company’s share price by 12.9%, and shares slipped further on Tuesday.