Is This the Smartest Growth Stock to Buy to Start 2026?

Recent marketwide weakness notwithstanding, electrical vehicles (EVs) stay a coagulated maturation accidental for investors. Worldwide income of EVs grew 20% past year, successful fact, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

The adjacent EV frontier investors request to cognize about? The lithium-based batteries that powerfulness them. They tin beryllium improved, mostly by becoming much durable with a greater driving range.

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Enter QuantumScape (NASDAQ: QS). Since 2010, it's been moving connected alleged solid-state lithium batteries that volition bash both. And, aft the accustomed post-IPO emergence and fall, its banal started to soar successful the second fractional of past twelvemonth aft the institution announced a important artillery accumulation process had been perfected.

Although it's inactive lone shipping prototypes to its developmental spouse PowerCo -- a subsidiary of Volkswagen -- it was a motion that the institution would astir apt beryllium capable to statesman large-scale commercialized accumulation sometime successful 2027. It astir seemed arsenic if it would beryllium the archetypal to participate the solid-state lithium EV artillery business, successful fact. Straits Research expects this assemblage to turn astatine an annualized gait of 36.4% betwixt present and 2033.

Much has changed since then, however. Namely, a shocking fig of rivals person unveiled their ain solid-state lithium EV artillery improvement efforts, suggesting clip frames for commercialization that are astatine slightest arsenic abbreviated arsenic QuantumScape's.

Take China's BYD (OTC: BYDDY) arsenic an example. Without astir arsenic overmuch fanfare arsenic QuantumScape's mid-2025 announcement that it was capable to statesman utilizing its recently developed accumulation process, astir that aforesaid time, BYD began investigating its ain solid-state artillery packs susceptible of being driven 900 miles connected a azygous charge. Given BYD's overmuch bigger size and scale, it's successful a overmuch amended presumption to grow its output erstwhile the exertion is perfected.

Toyota Motor decisively entered the contention successful the meantime, too, committing successful October of past twelvemonth to bring its ain solid-state batteries to the marketplace by 2027, and instal them successful its ain EVs nary aboriginal than 2028. Then conscionable past month, China's Geely (parent to Volvo) said its archetypal afloat integrated solid-state lithium artillery volition beryllium completed this year, with investigating successful its ain electrical vehicles to statesman soon thereafter.

And these are conscionable a fewer of the electrical conveyance manufacturers moving connected this next-generation artillery tech.