The Electric: ‘Good Enough’ Batteries Threaten Lithium-Metal Startups

In 2020, a mania erupted around next-generation electric vehicle batteries, especially lithium-metal batteries that promised 500 miles of driving range, twice as far as most EVs could go on a charge at the time. Investors mobbed QuantumScape, a California lithium-metal battery developer, whose share price rose almost sixfold in the month following its public listing that year when it predicted, among other things, that its batteries would be powering 1 million EVs annually by 2028. Major automakers piled in as well: General Motors, Stellantis, South Korea’s Hyundai Motor and Volkswagen all invested separately in QuantumScape and other U.S. lithium-metal battery developers, pledging to install such batteries in some of their EVs by the middle of the decade.