QuantumScape Corporation (QS)

[WeTheMarket]

Who Will Win the Battery Race: Tesla, VW, Renault or Stellantis? https://batterybay.eu/background/who-will-win-the-battery-race-tesla-vw-renault-or-stellantis/
July 10, 2021

After Tesla, the trailblazer in electric mobility, shared its plans at “Battery Day”, several major automakers followed suit. VW, Renault, and most recently Stellantis shared their electrification strategies at high-profile events. Besides new EV models and platforms, the companies presented their plans on batteries, production, and cooperations.

Let’s take a look at the specifications revealed at Renault’s “eWays” and Stellantis’ “EV Day 2021” and see how they stack up against Volkswagen’s strategy revealed at “Power Day” in March and Tesla’s strategy from “Battery Day” in September 2020.

This is a first overview of the announcements, let me know what topic you’d like to read a separate article about!

Battery Specifications
Future Innovation
Cost Saving Factors
Production Volume and Timeline
Can These Strategies Establish Europe as a Competetive Battery Hub?
Battery Specifications
A particularly interesting part of each presentation covers the different cell chemistries and designs. Even though the companies of course do not disclose their trade secrets, they revealed certain specifications, which I have summarised in the table below.

The four companies have each committed to one form factor, but offer different cell chemistries depending on the market segment.

Asterisks (*) mark guesses and estimations in the tables.


Renault did not share specifications on the shape of the cells. Since both the current partner LG and the future partners Envision AESC and Verkor are developing pouch cells, this form factor can be assumed.

Tesla, Volkswagen, and Stellantis are implementing an approach to integrate battery cells without modules (Cell2Pack). Tesla and VW are going one step further: they are developing a structural battery pack.


One of the exciting announcements from Stellantis was the development and implementation of solid-state batteries (SSB) by 2026. Renault also expects to introduce it by 2030, which is supposed to result in further cost savings. A few years ago, they were still promising a market-ready SSB 2025, but now they are talking about 2030. Renault had previously invested in Colorado-based SSB startup Ionic Materials.

VW has invested around $300 million in QuantumScape, which wants to manufacture solid-state batteries together with VW, possibly in Salzgitter from 2025. Check out my article The State of Solid State if you’re interested in the European automakers’ strategies for solid-state batteries!

Sustainability in terms of raw materials also plays a big role in the strategies. All companies have presented their recycling efforts. Additionally, Stellantis has signed MOUs with companies that extract lithium from geothermal brine in North America and Europe to ensure a sustainable supply of lithium. In a recent post I looked at different European lithium projects, one of the companies mentioned in the article might very well be this European partner.

Cost Saving Factors
At “Battery Day” and “Power Day”, the cost savings were broken down into the factors that affect them. As you can see in the table below, the figures are similar.

Renault also expects cost savings of around 50%. In the presentation however, they used 2019 as a basis, which makes the numbers difficult to compare directly. Stellantis wants to reduce costs by 40% until 2024 and by an additional 20% until 2030.