QuantumScape loses manufacturing chief over management style mismatch – TechCrunch

Celina Mikolajczak, who has held senior roles at Tesla and Panasonic, resigned from QuantumScape less than a yr soon after using the main producing officer situation at the solid-point out battery firm, according to a regulatory submitting.

Mikolajczak and QuantumScape are parting ways over “differing management designs concerning the get-togethers,” the submitting with the U.S. Securities and Trade Commission states. Mikolajczak will move to an advisory part on the company’s scientific advisory board.

She intends to focus her job on the improvement of a thoroughly U.S.-primarily based battery provide chain, according to the filing.

Shares of QuantumScape fell 7.7% to near at $10.15, in close proximity to its 52-week low of $10.

The departure wraps up a quickly and furious relationship in between the company and Mikolajczak.

A minor above a year in the past, Mikolajczak took a board seat at QuantumScape. She was however vice president of battery know-how at Panasonic Vitality of North America when she joined the board, telling TechCrunch at the time that her employer “graciously allowed her” to acquire the appointment.

A thirty day period afterwards, QuantumScape announced Mikolajczak would join the company as vice president of manufacturing engineering, beginning in July. She resigned from the board in relationship with accepting the supply. In her new role, Mikolajczak was billed with main the transition of the company’s applications and production procedures from investigation and advancement to creation, QuantumScape said in a regulatory submitting at the time.

The hiring appeared to be a boon for the two events.

QuantumScape, which had risen to buzzy prominence just after Volkswagen Team invested a lot more than $500 million, struck a offer in September 2020 to merge with a unique objective acquisition enterprise, Kensington Capital Acquisition Corp. The funds lifted by means of the community markets would give QuantumScape the strengthen it wanted to commercialize solid-point out batteries for electric powered motor vehicles.

In the meantime, Mikolajczak had the kind of encounter QuantumScape would require to scale.

Mikolajczak has a extended history of investigating and developing improved lithium-ion batteries. Her technological consulting practice at Exponent centered on lithium-ion cell and battery basic safety and top quality. She then took a senior management placement at Tesla that was targeted on cell quality and products engineering. Throughout her time at Tesla, Mikolajczak made the battery cells and packs for Tesla’s Product S, Model X, Design 3 and Roadster Refresh.

Soon after leaving Tesla, Mikolajczak went on to serve as director of engineering, focusing on battery growth for rideshare automobiles at Uber Technologies. And in 2019, she joined Panasonic Electricity of North The usa, in which she was vice president of battery technology. When at Panasonic, Mikolajczak led a workforce targeted on enhancing lithium-ion cell producing and bringing the hottest mobile technologies to mass production for Tesla at the Gigafactory facility in Sparks, Nevada.