QuantumScape (QS) 2026 年第三季財報電話會議：規劃 100 MWh 生產線

QuantumScape 2026 年第三季法說會聚焦於規劃中的 100 百萬瓦時（MWh）生產線、客戶開票金額的擴增，以及 QSC 5 在資料中心、汽車與先進應用領域的商業化進展。

重點摘要

• QuantumScape 公布第三季客戶開票金額為 980 萬美元，包含汽車與非汽車客戶、生態系夥伴付款及電芯出貨。
• 該公司宣布規劃建置一座 100 百萬瓦時的生產線，預計於 2028 年試產投產。設備成本目標控制在 1 億美元以下。
• 第三季 GAAP 營業費用為 9,240 萬美元，GAAP 淨虧損為 8,450 萬美元，調整後 EBITDA 虧損為 6,070 萬美元。
• QuantumScape 重申 2026 全年財測，預計調整後 EBITDA 虧損為 2.5 億至 2.75 億美元，資本支出為 2,700 萬至 3,700 萬美元。
• 第三季包含 QuantumScape 根據與本田（Honda）合約產生的首次客戶開票金額，以及來自先進應用客戶的首次開票。
• 該公司截至本季末擁有 8.198 億美元的流動資金，並表示正在為規劃中的生產線尋求非稀釋性資金。

核心財務數據

客戶開票金額代表向客戶及合作夥伴開具的發票金額，不論會計處理方式為何。QuantumScape 強調，此營運指標並非美國 GAAP 項下營收的替代指標，且各季度間可能有所波動。

業務與營運表現

100 百萬瓦時生產線

QuantumScape 計劃建置一條 100 百萬瓦時的量生產線，以供應資料中心、航太、國防及其他先進應用。預計於 2028 年開始試產。

該公司正與 Milbauer 合作開發下游電芯組裝設備。結合與村田製作所（Murata）及康寧（Corning）的合作夥伴關係，管理層表示此佈局將提供支援未來擴產的端到端生產流程。

選址工作仍持續進行中。QuantumScape 預計設備成本控制在 1 億美元以下，並預計在第四季法說會上隨 2027 年財測一同提供資本計劃。潛在資金來源包括客戶、政府計畫、生態系夥伴與授權夥伴。

管理層表示，該生產線將主要供應高價值非汽車應用。QuantumScape 打算針對具備自有製造能力的汽車客戶，維持其輕資產授權模式。

AI 資料中心儲能

QuantumScape 於 10 月 8 日推出 QS Power Block，作為 AI 資料中心機架式儲能參考設計。在公司測試中，該系統產出的功率密度與運行時間分別達 Open Compute Project 參考規格要求的 4 倍與 5 倍。

管理層認為安全性是核心差異化優勢，因為電池將在昂貴的運算設備附近運行。公司表示，客戶及第三方測試證實其固態電池技術在攝氏 300 度以上仍具熱穩定性，相比之下，包含磷酸鐵鋰（LFP）在內的傳統鋰離子電池約為攝氏 180 度。

QuantumScape 表示，客戶對產量的需求是促成其決定推動新生產線的原因之一。

汽車商業化

QuantumScape 根據 6 月公布的共同開發合約，記錄了來自本田（Honda）的首次客戶開票金額。該公司還與另一家全球移動出行製造商簽署了合約。

除了本田與福斯集團（Volkswagen）的 PowerCo 之外，管理層表示活躍的汽車合作還包括另外兩家全球前十大的車廠（OEM）。QuantumScape 正更新與 PowerCo 的工作聲明書，並推動雙方關係朝與技術進展掛鉤的里程碑付款模式發展。

管理層預計 PowerCo 和本田等汽車夥伴將透過技術轉移與授權安排進行製造。公司計劃於 11 月 11 日在日本舉辦的固態電池研討會上，提供下一代技術平台與汽車合作模式的更多細節。

先進應用

QuantumScape 已向國防、航空及電信領域的客戶交付 QSC 5 樣品，並於第三季記錄了來自先進應用的首次客戶開票金額。

管理層表示，到 2030 年，這些應用的可定址市場規模最高可達 7,500 萬美元。管理層還強調了該公司設於美國的製造與供應鏈，旨在避免依賴石墨及中國的關鍵設備或材料。

管理層財測

QuantumScape 重申了這兩個預測區間。公司在法說會期間未將規劃中的生產線納入詳細的資本計劃，並預計將隨 2027 年財測一同提供更多資訊。

風險與觀察重點

• 100 百萬瓦時生產線的試產目標設定於 2028 年，仍取決於選址、設備開發、安裝及資金募集情況。
• QuantumScape 正在尋求非稀釋性融資，但法說會上尚未確定最終的資金結構與股權安排。
• 隨著開發計畫推進至不同階段，客戶開票金額在各季度間可能出現重大差異，不應視為 GAAP 營收。
• 管理層指出，汽車領域的認證與商業化進程比資料中心及先進應用更為嚴格。
• 汽車產品與生產計畫的發布部分取決於 QuantumScape 的客戶，而與 PowerCo 的協議則繼續朝向里程碑式付款模式演進。

分析師問答環節重點

分析師高度關注規劃中生產線的經濟效益與所有權結構。管理層表示，設備成本目標控制在 1 億美元以下，選址正在進行中，QuantumScape 將評估政府補助、貸款及其他非稀釋性工具。

關於輕資產策略，管理層澄清直接製造將瞄準資料中心、航太、國防及其他高價值市場；汽車商業化則將繼續透過授權與技術轉移給具備現有製造能力的客戶進行。

針對 QS Power Block，管理層表示 QSC 5 所需的運作模式與電動車電池不同。資料中心應用包含在充電量中段頻繁出現的功率波動，預計較少進行深度放電。QuantumScape 強調該產品的功率密度、運行時間及熱穩定性是其主要優勢。

管理層預期資料中心與先進應用可能提供比汽車計畫更快的上市途徑。該公司目標是在 2028 年開始投產前簽下多位客戶。

法說會完整逐字稿

完整財報電話會議逐字稿

管理層陳述

Operator

Good day, and welcome to QuantumScape's Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Sam Kamara, QuantumScape's Senior Director, Investor Relations. You may begin your conference.

Sam Kamara

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, and thank you to everyone for joining QuantumScape's Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. To supplement today's discussion, please go to our Investor Relations website at ir.quantumscape.com to view our shareholder letter.

Before we begin, I want to call your attention to the safe harbor provision for forward-looking statements that is posted on our website as part of our quarterly update. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events future technology progress or future financial or operating performance. Our expectations and beliefs regarding these matters may not materialize, -- actual results and financial periods are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. There are risk factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from the content of our forward-looking statements for the reasons that we cite in our shareholder letter, Form 10-K and other SEC filings including uncertainties posed by the difficulty in predicting future outcomes.

Joining us today will be QuantumScape's CEO, Dr. Siva Sivaram, and our Chief Accounting Officer, Agnes Ten. Our Chief Financial Officer, Kevin Hettrich, is recovering from a planned medical procedure, and Agnes will cover the financial portion of today's call.

With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Siva.

Siva Sivaram

Thank you, Sam. We look forward to having Kevin back soon, and we wish him a speedy recovery. Let me start with the big news on cell manufacturing. In February of this year, we inaugurated the Eagle line, and it has already become the workhorse of our customer engagement, allowing an increased pace of customer sampling, which is flowing into customer billings. Our progress on demonstrating scalable production has given us the confidence to take the next step for production scale up beyond the design capacity of the Eagle line. Today, we announced a 100-megawatt hour mass production line with output aimed at meeting the rapidly emerging opportunities for our QSDC and QSS business verticals.

In addition, we announced a QS ecosystem partnership with on Bauer Group to provide cell assembly equipment for this planned line. Engineering work on higher throughput processes and equipment is already underway, and start-up production for this new line is targeted for 2028. With Murata, Corning and Milbauer. We have now announced partnerships with global players along the entire production flow representing an end-to-end solution for mass reduction of our technology as we work towards gigawatt tower scale production.

Next, I will provide an update on our 3 business verticals starting with QSBC. On October 8, we launched the QS power block for AI data centers in conjunction with the open compute project Global Summit. The QS power block is an in-rack energy storage reference design that enables AI data center architects to harness the improved energy density, high power capability and especially the improved safety profile of the QSC 5 cell. In testing, the QS block demonstrated 4x the power density and 5x longer run time than the refer specification from OCP. This is a clear demonstration of the step change performance improvement provided by QS technology and the value we can offer a data center customer. Another important advantage of our ceramic solid-state separator is its safety profile, in particular, its thermostability. Conventional lithium an batteries, including LFP batteries are not thermally stable above approximately 180 degrees Celsius, leading to the risk of catastrophic thermal runaway, and making insurance and regulatory approval more onerous, which slows down deployment of critical AI infrastructure.

In contrast, fewer solid-state batteries have been shown to be thermally stable well over 300 degrees Celsius. And we recently validated this result in customer testing as well as with third-party lab testing.

Next, an update on our automotive vertical, QS EV. Engagement on automotive cell development continues to be robust across our global automotive customers. In Q3, we recorded our first customer billings from Honda agreement announced in June. This agreement encompasses joint development work to integrate our solid-state platform into Honda's technology road map. In addition, we have signed an agreement with a new customer to further advance automotive comment stage. This agreement is with a leading global player in mobility manufacturing whose applications and requirements are aligned with our automotive customers. We are aligning our statements of work with Volkswagen PowerCo with a goal of bringing them onto our long-term technology platform that goes beyond QSC 5 and includes other applications.

Our aim is to bring all of our automotive customers on to a common technology platform. On November 11, we will announce more details on our next-generation technology platform and collaboration model with automotive customers at our third annual solid-state battery symposium in Q2 defend.

Next, an update on our QSS business vertical. QS AS is engaged with customers across many advanced applications. Defense aerospace, medical devices, consumer electronics and more. We believe this diversity of applications offers an attractive opportunity set for our QSC 5 platform with a total addressable market for QS AS of up to $75 million by 2030. We have shipped QSC 5 samples to customers in the defense aviation and telecommunication sectors, and we recorded our first customer billings from QS AS this quarter. One important point of feedback from customers in defense is that supply chain weldability are not just a theoretical concern. They are already seeing restrictions put in place by foreign governments which limit their ability to procure cutting-edge batteries to power their advanced defense systems. This is a point of differentiation for QS.

In addition to advantages in performance and safety, our sales are built in America and use supply chains that were designed from the beginning to avoid critical dependencies on Chinese suppliers of equipment or materials such as graphite. Finally, with Q3 behind us, I'd like to take a look back at our execution so far on our 4 key goals for 2026. These 4 goals were all focused on 1 strategic objective, taking our solid-state battery technology and turning it into products across multiple verticals. Our execution towards our goals has been strong. Our first key goal for 2026 is to demonstrate scalable production on the Eagle line. Eagle line is fully operational and is producing increased volumes of QSC 5 cells for our customers. This has allowed us to move to the next stage of scale up with the announcement today of our 100-megawatt hour mass production line and ecosystem partnership with the Mobile Group.

Our second key goal for 2026 is to advance automotive commercialization. So far in this year, we have announced our second named automotive partnership with Honda. We continue our engagement automotive development with Volkswagen PowerCo and we have signed new agreements and expanding existing relationships with global players in automotive and mobility.

Our third key goal for 2026 is to enter new high-value markets, and we are seeing strong interest in both our QSBC and QS AS verticals. With the QS power block, QSBC is addressing the need for high-performance safer in rack energy storage for advanced AI data center design. With QS AS we are seeing broad interest across advanced applications, including defense aviation and telecommunications, and we have already begun generating customer billings from QSC 5 sample shipments.

Finally, in 2026, we promised to go beyond QSC 5 with an update on our technology road map, and we are pleased to announce that this will take place in conjunction with our third annual solid-state battery symposium on November 11 in Kito, Japan. We are proud of the progress we have made so far in 2026 and while there is much work left to do, the whole team is focused on our mission to revolutionize energy storage. We look forward to sharing more updates soon.

Unknown Executive

Thank you, Siva. GAAP operating expenses and GAAP net loss in Q3 were $92.4 million and $84.5 million, respectively. Adjusted EBITDA loss was $60.7 million in Q3, in line with expectations. For full year 2026, we reiterate our adjusted EBITDA loss guidance of between $250 million and $275 million. A table reconciling GAAP net loss in adjusted EBITDA is available in the financial statements at the end of the shareholder letter.

Capital expenditures in the third quarter were $4.4 million. Q3 CapEx was primarily composed of investment into our technology road map and associated facility spend. For full year 2026, we reiterate our guidance for CapEx to be between $27 million and $37 million. Customer billings in Q3 were $9.8 million. Customer billings as a metric represents the total value of all invoices issued by QS to our customers and partners in the period regardless of the accounting treatment. As a reminder, customer billings may vary from quarter-to-quarter due to fluctuations in activity as we progress through various phases of engagement. This operational metric is not a substitute for revenue under U.S. GAAP.

Customer billings in Q3 included both automotive and nonautomotive customers and reflected the mix of development activities payments from ecosystem partners and cell shipments. We ended Q3 with $819.8 million in liquidity and will remain prudent with our strong balance sheet going forward. As always, we encourage investors to read more on our financial information, business outlook and risk factors in our quarterly and annual SEC filings on our Investor Relations website.

Sam Kamara

Thanks, Agnes. We will begin today's Q&A portion with a few questions we have received from investors or that I believe would interest investors. Siva, today, we announced a 100-megawatt hour production line as well as a partnership with mobile to provide cell assembly equipment. Why take the step now and why mobile?

Siva Sivaram

Then we have announced the QS power block at the OCP conference and we have shipped cells to a number of aerospace and defense customers. The response from both markets has been very strong. These customers don't typically have their own cell manufacturing capacity so we need to provide a manufacturing solution. The Eagle line, our highly automized pilot line, along with our COBRA process is demonstrating scalable production. We are sampling to more customers, generating billings, and this pilot line is laying the groundwork for the next step up in scale. And for this step, it is crucial to bring in an ecosystem partner with deep experience in automation and cell manufacturing equipment development to partner with us. And that's where Molvar comes in.

When we take our material supply partners, separate or partners, including Murata and Corning and put that together with downstream cell assembly with Milbauer that gives you an end-to-end process flow enabled by a set of world-class experts. This line lets us serve high-value markets directly while keeping our capital-light licensing model for automotive.

Sam Kamara

Sure. This quarter, we recorded our first billing from Honda and added a new agreement with their mobility manufacturer. Where does automotive commercialization stand and what should investors expect for the rest of the year?

Siva Sivaram

Some automotive continues to be a large and important market for us. On commercialization, in June, we announced our agreement with Honda. And this quarter, we recorded our first billings from Honda. In Q3, we also added an agreement with a global player in mobility manufacturing. Beyond Honda and Volkswagen PowerCo, our active customer engagements include 2 other top 10 OEMs. As we have done on a regular basis, we are in the process of updating our statement of work with VW PowerCo. As part of that process, we have amended our collaboration agreement to eliminate transition payments and are working to add milestones tied to technology advancements. We continue to make substantive progress in advancing our technology platform, and we are aligning our automotive customers to take advantage of this.

Regarding our cut event, I won't give too much away today, but keep in mind that our ceramic separator enables an anot-free lithium metal architecture that is castoagnostic. Getting the automotive industry aligned on this 1 platform positions us to become the de facto operating system for the solid-state battery industry creating enormous potential for value creation and capture. That's what we're aiming for. And I'll save the rest for the Symposia on November 11.

Sam Kamara

We launched the QS power block at the OSP Conference in San Jose. What's been the feedback from AI Datacenter customers so far?

Siva Sivaram

We're extremely excited about this market and OCP was a great chance to get customer feedback. We heard 3 consistent themes. First, for data center architects, the role of energy storage is changing rapidly. I'll use an automotive analogy. In the past, batteries were basically like a spare tire in a car, you carry it alarm, but you hope you don't need it. As we enter the 800-welBC transition and as single rack power is headed towards 1 megawatt, the battery is becoming more like a suspension system. It is working constantly to smooth things out. And without a suspension system, something will break pretty quickly. This is a totally new use case and data center architects need fundamental innovation to make it work.

Second, for indacpower, safety is the absolute priority. That means architects today are generally limited to using LFP batteries, and they are paying a big performance penalty to maximize safety. That gives us a clear opportunity to deliver systems that not only have longer run time and better power density but also a safety profile that meets even LFP on term antibility.

Last, this transition is all happening. Customers want to see the QS power block in volume, and that's why we are announcing this 100-megawatt power line today. Start-up production in 2028 aligns well with the data center industry time line and now is the time to take that next step up.

Sam Kamara

Okay. Thanks so much, Debra. We are now ready to begin the light portion of today's call. Operator, please open up the line for questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Winnie Dong with Deutsche Bank.

分析師問答

Yan Dong

First 1 is on the 100-megawatt hour line with new borer. Just curious to see what the economic arrangement may be in terms of who owns it, who pays? And then what does it do to the CapEx-light model.

Siva Sivaram

In, thanks for asking the question. Just to put the Milbauer announcement in context on the 100-megawatt wordline in context. The longest time aspect of the project is designing, building and installing the equipment. And now that we have started on that, we are announcing the planned 100-megawatt hour line today. And obviously, the next question is where is this going to be? And on site selection, the process is underway. We will keep it confidential as you would expect and announce it at the appropriate time. We will provide a capital plan and in the 2027 financial guidance on our Q4 earnings call.

We are targeting equipment cost to of less than $100 million. But in terms of funding, we are pursuing nondilutive funding sources, including customers, government, ecosystem and licensing partners, and we'll keep you updated.

Yan Dong

All right. That's helpful. And then you mentioned you recorded your first Honda billings in the third quarter. I was wondering if you can help size that? And then what does that mean in terms of time line to eventually signing a legacy agreement with them?

Siva Sivaram

So in, let me be finish up on a point you asked earlier. So what happens to our capital-light model with the 100-megawatt hour. And this deals back with your Honda question. We still are keeping our capital-light licensing model to address markets such as automotive that have their own manufacturing capacity. So our expectation is that whether it is with Volkswagen Powerco or with Honda, we will be transferring technology to them so that they can ramp up their own production. Now with respect to products and product lines as we are going to do those announcements have to come from our customers but the engagement with has been very, very strong, and we are working very closely with them.

Operator

Our next question comes from Mark Shuter with William Blair.

Mark Shooter

Steve, congrats on the power block product launch. Just a quick question on that. I'm just trying to get your thoughts on the application. The BBU product back application space is defined by high power, high pulse -- this is a very different vector space than where you have been optimizing for EVs, which is more long cycle life, right? You mean probably in the order of 1,000 cycles. And more full debt issuance, not just the high pulse application. I understand that theoretically, lithium metal has far better power density. But in practice in the lab, I'm wondering what have you done to maybe retune the cell off of the EV design and optimize it for the BBU application?

Siva Sivaram

Mark, you Perceptive, -- that's a very, very good question. The application for automotive use case is very different than in the BBU use case, where we don't need to worry about low temperatures. The occasional brown out where you do full discharges probably a couple of times a month, if not a few times a year, most of the time is used for high frequency ups and downs and towards the middle of the charge and discharge. And what we have done is shown a couple of specs that are remarkably good for our technology. First is power, how much power can produce out of this, and we are 4x better than anything that the OCP spec calls for. And then how much run time can I support. So when you get to be a megawatt or rack and you are taking care of ultra-high frequency changes with capacitors, but the rest of it is supported by the battery how much can you support on your own.

And we found that compared to the spec, we are 5x longer run time. So the lithium metal technology naturally is a better fit for this application. But most important than anything else is safety. You are sitting adjacent to very high-value GPUs. And people are ultra scale about putting an NMC battery are something that could cause a thermal runaway. Here, the better safety profile of the QSC 5 is a very, very good fit for them in the ability to withstand thermal runaway. So in all, this is very good fit and the QSC 5 seems to have found an interesting home.

Mark Shooter

Great. I appreciate that. Just to pivot to the 100-megawatt hour line announcement, congrats on that as well. I heard you also say a winning about $100 million in CapEx, and that's where you've seen like the top end. What are you seeing behind the scenes that's changed or the have you divert from the CapEx-light model you were pursuing. And DWI believe has right of first refusal in the first 5 gigawatt hours if they choose to take that. And I'm just wondering -- are they in place here for the ownership or who ends up developing this line to end up owning the asset?

Siva Sivaram

Yes. So you are correct in pointing out that in our contract with Powerco, they have a capacity to add nonautomotive applications. However, what has come out of this is how well the Eagle line has done and remember, Osaanporaco is here with us developing it. They are in our shop working handling globe. So that relationship is going well. But this equipment design is built off of our advancements on the Eagle line. And mobile will develop a full back-end cell assembly line for us. That's the structure that we are going in. And we'll be looking at, as you said, a capital-light model for any automotive applications that we do it either at Parco or at Honda. And this line will be directed primarily at the high-value applications, such as aerospace, defense and data center.

Mark Shooter

That's very helpful. Should we look at that as maybe a DOW stepping in for some nondilutive funding like we've seen in some of the private sector and maybe some other smaller battery players?

Siva Sivaram

We have seen those, and we have seen other brands, loans and many other instruments from the government being applied, and we will be looking at those as well.

Operator

Our next question comes from Ben Kallo with Baird.

Ben Kallo

I was just -- congrats on everything. Just in terms of automotive versus data center versus aerospace, could you just talk about how competitive the environment is versus -- in all 3 of those verticals?

Siva Sivaram

Thanks, Ben. So as you would expect, these markets are substantively different in the customer base, especially with respect to the QS AS advanced solutions that covers defense aerospace, communications, et cetera. There, the supply chain is a big asset for us. A, we are a U.S.-based manufacturer based cell. We constructed the supply chain to have no dependence on graphite. We don't have in our architecture in graphite. And we are partnering with as the government called it non-OC non-foreign entities of concern partners. So every 1 of them is done with a friendly partner to go make this happen. So this is particularly relevant for our defense and aerospace applications. And more and more, we see that even with the data center partners, that they are looking for a supply chain from a friendly source.

Add on top of it, the better safety profile that makes us have some additional advantages over any competition. And then, of course, intrinsically, the cell is better in energy and power and all of the conventional applications that you would look for.

Operator

Our next question comes from Mark Delaney with Goldman Sachs.

Unknown Analyst

You've got Aushon for Mark Delaney. Congrats on the new production line and sort of with that, how are you thinking about the relative timing of commercialization across the 3 verticals? And how, if at all, has that timing changed over the last year?

Siva Sivaram

So the 100-megawatt or line, the start of production is targeted by 2028. We are looking at both and QS AS maybe a faster time to market than the more rigorous QS EV application. But that does not mean our targets for QS has changed. We are continuing to work with our partners with that same original target of getting it into revenue and commercialization. What we have done here is with an end-to-end solution for mass production with very trusted ecosystem partners like Murata, Corning or Milbauer -- is nature, we have a high confidence in us being able to address these high-value markets very, very quickly.

Unknown Analyst

Helpful. And then separately, I wanted to ask about VW given the restructuring efforts going on there. Can you speak to what, if any, implications that may have for the PowerCo relationship? And then separately, how do you see the relationship with PowerCo evolving here? You noted aligning the statement of work beyond QSC 5?

Siva Sivaram

The relationship with PowerCo remains very strong, and the overall goal of the collaboration remains unchanged. But as you know, this partnership is constantly evolving. As we said last quarter, we are moving the PowerCo engagement towards milestone-based payments. As part of this, we'll also be expanding to cover other applications such as the data center and robotics. So overall, we are continuing to evolve this relationship towards these applications as well.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Gabriel Gonzalez with UBS.

Gabriel Gonzales

I guess, Saba, the decision to move forward with the 100-megawatt hour line, it kind of suggests growing confidence the demand across QSDC and QSS. I guess what sort of level of customer interest supports that decision? How many customers are currently testing samples? And over the next 12 months, what commercial commitments would you like to see?

Siva Sivaram

You are asking the right center questions. We have increasing confidence coming from 3 mutually our tagaldirection. First, when we introduced the power block and when we started sampling to multiple QS AS customers across multiple verticals, the feedback has been very, very strong and everyone has been asking for volume as soon as possible. Independently, we have obviously ramped up the Eagle line, and we are seeing the capability of the Eagle line to form as a foundation for the next higher level of step-up. The third is a partner such as Bulbar coming in and validating the Eagle line and proposing a structure to ramp up from on top of it and taking ownership in this partnership to get that going. All 3 of them put together give us the confidence the markets the demand from our customers, the confidence in the technology based on the Eagle line and the support of our ecosystem partners all give us the confidence to take this 100-megawatt step right now.

Gabriel Gonzales

And I guess just in the time line between like an award win to start of production in the Western markets in automotive, it's typically a 2- to 3-year time line. Obviously, the data center is a completely different end market, but could we see some awards be announced within that 2027 time frame before 2028 started production?

Siva Sivaram

You see how fast both of these markets are moving. The defense marketplace drones and other applications, similarly on the data center marketplace. This BBU concept, for instance, was a novelty barely 9 months ago, and already, we are seeing racks being displayed in conferences. This is moving very, very rapidly. And we want to be there in the middle of it to take advantage of it. And that's why we want to have started production in 2028, and we want to have multiple customers signed up before that to make sure that the uptake is there.

Operator

Thank you. I would now like to turn the call back over to Siva Sivaram, for any closing remarks.

Siva Sivaram

Thank you, operator. I would like to recognize the entire QS team for their execution this quarter from the Eagle line to the launch of the QS bottom block was 100 megawatt-hour line we announced today. Thank you to our shareholders for their continued support, and we look forward to updating you on our progress in the months ahead. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. This concludes the conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.