QuantumScape's Osprey Cell Held 80% Capacity for 1,000 Cycles at 1 atm, in a Cell Smaller Than 0.4Ah
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QuantumScape's Osprey Cell Held 80% Capacity for 1,000 Cycles at 1 atm, in a Cell Smaller Than 0.4Ah
The all-solid-state result is real, but the fast-charge figure was measured at 80°C and the 1,100 Wh/L density is a projection from a coin cell tested at 3 atm.
QuantumScape said on November 11, 2026 that a two-layer cell on its new Osprey all-solid-state platform kept about 80 percent of its capacity after 1,000 cycles at one atmosphere of pressure. The figure is company-reported, and the conditions behind it are narrower than the press release's summary suggests.
The San Jose battery developer published a press release and a white paper. Electrek's Fred Lambert read the white paper and reported the test conditions the release leaves out.
What Osprey changes
Osprey replaces the liquid catholyte inside QuantumScape's cathode with a solid sulfide electrolyte, which makes the whole cell solid-state. It keeps the ceramic separator and anode-free design of the company's current QSE platform. The QSE-5 cells that QuantumScape ships as samples from its Eagle Line pilot line in San Jose are not all-solid-state: they use a liquid catholyte with a high-nickel NMC cathode and are rated at 844 Wh/L and 301 Wh/kg.
Dr. Siva Sivaram, President and CEO of QuantumScape, said in the release: "Osprey is the result of years of frontier R&D efforts, and we're excited to share it publicly for the first time." The company calls Osprey an open platform: customers can use its dry-process sulfide cathode or bring their own. Volkswagen's PowerCo and Honda are existing licensing partners. No timeline for Osprey production was given.
The numbers and their conditions
The headline figures each come from a different test cell, which is why none of them describes a single battery.
| Claim | Test cell | Condition |
|---|---|---|
| About 80% capacity after 1,000 cycles | 2-layer, 50 x 65 mm cathode | 1C charge and discharge, 0 to 100% charge, 30°C, 1 atm |
| 10% to 80% charge in 5 minutes | 2-layer | 10C, 80°C (176°F) |
| 68% of room-temperature capacity at -20°C | single layer, 21 x 21 mm | C/3 discharge |
| Up to about 1,100 Wh/L | 11 mm coin cell | 3 atm, 100 cycles; projection |
Electrek estimates the cycling cell at roughly 0.3 to 0.4Ah, against about 5Ah for a QSE-5 cell. The cathode loading was 5.5 mAh/cm². The 1,100 Wh/L projection assumes cathodes at 10 mAh/cm², about double current EV cells, and rests on a coin cell that ran at 3 atm, not 1 atm.
The fast-charge claim is the weakest. The release says five minutes; the white paper says that was at 80°C, and no room-temperature fast-charge result was published, according to Electrek. At 0°C the single-layer cell kept 85 percent of its room-temperature capacity.
Why 1 atm matters
Pressure is the cost that sulfide cells usually hide. QuantumScape's own illustration puts 20 atm on a 10 x 24.2 cm cell at about 5,000 kg of force, roughly three mid-size cars. Many laboratory sulfide cells need 30 to 100 atm or more, and China's FAW reported large-format sulfide cells cycling at 5 MPa, about 50 atm, in September.
- FAW large-format cells (Sept.)50 atm
- QuantumScape illustration20 atm
- Osprey 2-layer cycling cell1 atm
Source: Electrek, 2026-11-11, citing QuantumScape and FAW (approximate)
The comparison is not like for like: FAW's cells are large-format and Osprey's is under 0.4Ah. Automakers want larger prismatic cells with more layers, and the white paper describes Osprey as demonstrated "at laboratory scale".
Where it sits against the field
The cycle figure is also lower than QuantumScape's earlier one. PowerCo confirmed more than 95 percent retention after 1,000 cycles for early QSE cells in 2024, a different chemistry at a different stage. The timelines elsewhere are further out: Samsung SDI targets sulfide mass production at Ulsan in the second half of 2027, BYD small batches in 2027, and Toyota 2027 to 2028 after slips from 2020, 2023 and 2026. Electrek reports CATL said in June that mass-market solid-state is years away, around 2030.
Related coverage: BYD's robotic charging arm and Ring's battery-powered security drone.
QuantumScape reported $9.8 million in customer billings for the third quarter and is building a 100 MWh line for QSE-5 targeting production start in 2028. The number to watch is whether Osprey reproduces its 1,000-cycle result in a multi-layer cell of QSE-5 size, which the company has not yet shown.
Sources
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