Secrecy in the Battery Industry Is Becoming a Headache for Everyone
Akshat Rathi, 20 April 2021
Most automakers have now committed to electrifying their fleets. That’s brought growing attention to batteries, which still make up about a third of the cost of an electric car, and led to multibillion-dollar valuations of secretive startups.
All well and good for battery chemists who get large sums of money to pursue wild scientific ideas that may lead to major breakthroughs. But when secrecy and early-technology risk collide with public markets, it can spell trouble.
That’s what happened to QuantumScape Corp. last week, when Scorpion Capital published a 188-slide report calling the company a “scam.” Scorpion has a short position on QuantumScape, which means it’s betting on the company’s stock price to decline.
QuantumScape is one among a growing crop of solid-state battery companies that are promising a leap in performance over current lithium-ion technology. The industry is extremely secretive. It’s not just about holding tightly to proprietary materials and trade secrets that are the key to beating the competition, but also about keeping key battery performance private.
