QuantumScape has announced a key breakthrough in its manufacturing scale-up, confirming that its next-generation Cobra separator process has officially entered baseline cell production.
The Cobra process now underpins the company’s high-throughput, continuous-flow separator manufacturing platform. Engineered for speed, efficiency and compactness, Cobra marks a significant evolution in ceramic separator production. Compared to the earlier Raptor process, Cobra delivers a ~25x increase in heat treatment speed while occupying a fraction of the physical footprint per film start – critical advantages for gigafactory-scale deployment.
“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 commercialising 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,” added 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 separator process replaces the Raptor process previously used for B0 cell production, which had already delivered notable gains in separator quality and process stability. With Cobra now established as the new production baseline, QuantumScape is positioned to accelerate throughput and scalability as it prepares for higher-volume B1 sample production.
The company expects further improvements in production metrics as future iterations of Cobra are rolled out – paving the way for commercialisation of its solid-state battery platform at industrial scale.
Image: QuantumScape’ Cobra separator process has entered baseline cell production
