QuantumScape Lab
Courtesy QuantumScape
Stock in electric vehicle battery technology company QuantumScape is dropping after the company reported first-quarter numbers. Earnings have nothing to do with the drop.
QuantumScape (ticker: QS) stock is down about 4% in premarket trading. S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures, for comparison, are both off about 0.4%.
QuantumScape stock is down, but the company is is still developing its products, so earnings don’t matter. Baird analyst Ben Kallo summed up the situation in his post-earnings research report published Wednesday: “QuantumScape is a pre-revenue company attempting to revolutionize the solid-state battery market,” adding “near-term results remain less important than milestones and progress towards commercialization.”
Solid-state batteries are, essentially, an upgrade over current technology that promise better cost, EV range, safety, and charge times. But developers have yet to make such batteries suitable for automotive applications.
QuantumScape is making progress though. Tuesday, the company said it would have prototypes in auto makers’ hands by 2022. That’s the first time that date has been floated. They also tested a stack of larger battery cell with four layers. QuantumScape is progressing to commercial size sells by stacking batteries as thin as playing cards. Kallo pointed out in his report that the new testing puts the company on track to meet another milestone: testing eight to 10 layer cells by the end of the year.
Milestones added and being met doesn’t explain the price drop. QuantumScape also raised its capital-spending guidance by $30 million to a midpoint of $290 million. More money out the door could be a reason for concern, but management is spending more to accelerate development.
The stock might be weak because Kallo, while maintaining his Hold rating on QuantumScap stock, cut his price target to $36 from $52. But that was partly because shares are down for all companies that went public through SPACs, or special-purpose acquisition companies. QuantumScape stock is down 46% over the past three months, and the Defiance Next Gen SPAC Derived ETF (SPAK) is down 32% over the same span.
Goldman Sachs analyst Mark Delaney did the same thing as Kallo, maintaining a Hold rating while cutting his price target to $33 from $51 “on lower market multiples for peers.”
Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas is more bullish. He rates QuantumScape at Buy, and left his $70 price target unchanged after earnings. Jonas was fine with the quarter, noting that the company is doubling the capacity of its pilot battery-making facility. That “serves to facilitate a broader range of potential customer discussions while de-risking the path to commercial ramp for VW,” wrote Jonas in a Wednesday report.
Volkswagen (VOW3.Germany) is an investor and key customer for QuantumScape.
Overall, QuantumScape’s quarter looks just fine. The biggest problem for the stock is that investors have less of an appetite for more speculative companies with no sales.
Write to Al Root at [email protected]
