QuantumScape’s Osprey Cell Is Fully Solid-State — and It Ran 1,000 Cycles at Just 1 Atmosphere
Based on QuantumScape’s own announcement of November 11, 2026. Every figure below is the company’s reported data.
QuantumScape has unveiled Osprey, a new all-solid-state battery platform — and the headline is not the name. It is a pressure figure: one atmosphere. In its November 11 announcement, the company published what it calls the world’s first public data for a sulfide-based cathode cycling 1,000 times under just one atmosphere of pressure.
What QuantumScape says the cell did
The reported numbers are the strongest public solid-state figures QuantumScape has put its name to.
- 1,000 full charge cycles with about 80% capacity retention, under what the company calls gold-standard testing conditions
- Fast charging from 10% to 80% in five minutes
- Operation at temperatures below −20 °C (−4 °F)
- Projected energy density of up to roughly 1,100 Wh/L
Osprey pairs QuantumScape’s proprietary ceramic separator and anode-free lithium-metal design with a solid cathode — the piece that makes the cell solid-state on both sides of the separator, rather than only one.
Why one atmosphere is the real story
Solid-state cells usually need to be squeezed — and squeezing a car battery is a problem nobody had a cheap answer for.
Solid layers only work while they stay in firm contact, so most solid-state designs run under high stack pressure. In a laboratory press that is easy; in a vehicle pack it means heavy structures, added cost and one more thing to engineer around. A cell that survives 1,000 cycles at ordinary atmospheric pressure removes that packaging problem — which is why this figure matters more than the five-minute charging claim, impressive as that is.
A platform, not just a cell
Osprey is also a business move: QuantumScape is opening the design to partners.
The company describes Osprey as an open platform for battery development, with licensing and co-development options, and says it has tested the design with solid cathodes built in-house and by its automotive customers. Cells based on its existing QSE platform, it adds, are already shipping to customers today.
The honest caution
Everything above is QuantumScape’s own reported data — and two things were not announced.
The 1,100 Wh/L figure is a projection, not a measurement from a production cell, and the announcement names no car and no launch date. Solid-state batteries have been five years away for a decade; our QuantumScape solid-state progress guide tracks what the company has actually shipped against what it has announced.
Bottom line
Osprey does not put a solid-state battery in a showroom. But it attacks the exact problem — pressure — that has kept solid-state cells in the laboratory, and it does it with published cycle data instead of promises. That makes this the solid-state announcement of the month, and the one to measure the next claims against.
