Solid-state battery specialist and Volkswagen partner QuantumScape is losing its previous head of production Celina Mikolajczak, who has previously worked for Tesla and Panasonic. Her duties will be taken over by QuantumScape CEO Jagdeep Singh.
Mikolajczak resigned from her post due to “differing management styles”, QuantumScape wrote in a mandatory filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). However, she will remain with the company in an advisory capacity.
Mikolajczak’s duties as chief manufacturing officer – including, for example, setting up production facilities and managing supply chains – will now be taken over directly by Quantumscape chief Jagdeep Singh. It is not clear from the SEC filing whether Singh will perform the dual role permanently or whether Mikolajczak’s post will be filled.
Whether Mikolajczak has already found a new employer is currently unknown. The SEC release states that Mikolajczak informed the company “that she intends to focus her career on developing a fully US-based battery supply chain”. Prior to joining QuantumScape, she worked at Tesla in battery development and at Panasonic North America as head of battery technology, among other positions. She was active at QuantumScape for only eleven months. The consulting contract now runs for one year and can be extended by mutual agreement.
According to media reports, there are said to have been some problems at QuantumScape in cell development and commercialisation. The competitor Solid Power, for example, announced that the bai of its pilot line had been completed last week. The first large-format cells with 60 or 100 Ah are to be delivered to Ford and BMW for qualification tests before the end of this year. According to the German publication Golem, QuantumScape’s current sample cells will only reach 3 Ah – enough for lab tests, but not for electric cars. Moreover, QuantumScape has not yet provided any information on the actual energy density of its cells.
techcrunch.com, sec.report, golem.de (in German)
Keyword: QuantumScape Head of Production Mikolajczak leaves the company