Immersion cooling could make electric vehicle batteries far more efficient

Shawn Knight

Posts: 15,308   +193
Staff member
The big picture: Battery tech itself may not be advancing as quickly as we'd hope but supporting technologies like immersion cooling are making existing methods more efficient.

We recently shared a video from 3M engineer Conny Larsson demonstrating a PC submersed in 3M’s Novec Engineered Fluid, a non-conductive liquid that eliminates the need for active cooling components like heatsinks, fans and thermal interface material.

It’s a viable cooling solution that’s been around for decades and is most often used in data centers. But as Taiwan’s Xing Mobility has shown, it could also be used to cool battery packs in electric vehicles.

Xing Mobility recently published a video on YouTube illustrating the multiple benefits of immersion cooling in its modular battery system. According to the company, this approach affords superior heat transfer, temperature uniformity, improved power density, faster charging, longer battery life, fire suppression properties and higher peak power draws.

Last June, Xing Mobility shared a teaser of its Miss R supercar featuring the aforementioned immersion cooling system. Its 1 megawatt drivetrain reportedly produces 1,341 HP, good enough to propel the vehicle from 0-62 mph in 1.8 seconds and 0-124 mph in 5.1 seconds.

Even if Xing Mobility isn’t able to turn out its own vehicle, it’d be nice to see them license the tech to established EV makers or see existing firms come up with a similar solution.

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It would be interesting to know just how much of a performance increase this would offer.
 
It's a cute article but basicly worthless. Tell me how much more significant increase it provides either in mileage as opposed as without the cooling, can the cells be impact resistance without adding significant weight to the vehicle, what is the operating temperature before and after the cooling ... etc. This is about technology, not just another cute platform for advertising! OK .... Rant is over and, I'm feeling cooler!!!
 
" active cooling components like heatsinks",

Since when is a "heatsink" an "active" cooling component?

Not to mention the heated fluid surely must have to exchange the heat it gains somewhere or with something.

In actuality, immersion in fluid cooling of electronics is hardly new a new concept. Can you say Cray?
 
While it might increase the cooling, isn't this going to add a pretty good amount of weight? Power to weight is what it's all about and adding weight to an already heavy electric vehicle is only going to reduce range. That is of course, assuming the battery itself hasn't undergone some kind of upgrade increasing it's power capacity.
 
Video was very underwhelming. I have no idea idea why they hired a professional driver and put a helmet on him then closed roads just to drive around at speeds comparable to my grandma on Sundays.
 
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