Improving electric vehicle battery (EVB) thermal management

Discover how you can make your electric vehicle battery (EVB) last longer with excellent thermal management.

According to a paper published in The Journal of the Electrochemical Society, Tesla will soon be able to create an EVB that powers an electric vehicle for “over 1 million miles”.

This is exciting news, especially when you consider that the EVB is also predicted to lose less than 10% of its energy capacity during its entire lifetime. With such tremendous innovation, your future EVB should (in theory) outlast the lifespan of your vehicle. Yet, this may not actually be the case.

In this blog, we explore the ins and outs of electric vehicle battery thermal management – including why it’s important and what solutions are available to keep you on the move.

Why electric vehicle battery thermal management is important

Several stress factors can strongly impact the degradation rate of your EVB. Principally, these include poor charge management techniques and exposure to high temperatures. Charge management is an easy problem to solve, as drivers can adopt simple tricks such as storing the electric vehicle at a charge rate of less than 75%.

Why is this best practice? Because when you store an electric vehicle at full battery for too long, its maximum storage potential will gradually reduce. However, it’s much more difficult to protect your EVB from the threat of high temperatures. After all, you cannot control the weather – especially in the UK. Getting to grips with good thermal management for electric vehicle batteries is therefore crucial, as it can keep your electric vehicle on the road for much longer.

Understanding electric vehicle battery thermal management

While the cooling systems installed in electric vehicles to lower the heat of EBVs are becoming increasingly sophisticated, they have their limitations. These must be addressed, so you don’t have to worry about parking your electric vehicle in high temperatures for long periods. To recognise the limitations of cooling systems it’s handy to understand how they work.

Thermoelectric cooling is often used within an electric vehicle in tandem with a battery thermal management system (BTMS). With this combination, cold air and liquid coolants are used to bring down the battery’s temperature, meaning that no insulation is needed, which makes maintenance easier. Unfortunately, an electric vehicle battery thermal management system with thermoelectric cooling can be quite heavy-duty.

For starters, it requires lots of battery power. Not only does this make them not very energy efficient, but it raises extreme safety measures too, with the liquid coolants being very close to high voltage components. With this in mind, it’s best to ease the pressure on the cooling system with a fully customised Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) solution, which incorporates a high-temperature performance seal.

Such a seal maintains the constant environment within the battery at high temperatures to ensure thermal management problems become a thing of the past.

OEM solutions to protect your electric vehicle battery

Designed by industry-leading sealing suppliers like Ramsay, OEM parts are tailor-made for vehicles by people who understand their design inside-out. With the right solution in place, you can have full faith in your electric vehicle to stand up to hot summer heats without worrying about the impact on your vehicle. After all, an electric vehicle is a major investment and you can never be too careful. By simply adding a high-temperature performance seal to protect your car’s battery, you’ll have complete peace of mind.

A silicone rubber/sponge will do the trick, offering strength, durability and unparalleled resistance to heat, all the way up to 230 ˚C. Not even the hottest summer’s day will cause the battery to overheat.

With this being the case, our silicon solution provides unsurpassable thermal management of your electric vehicle battery while also offering outstanding weathering properties, UV and chemical resistance. But that’s not all. Our polyamide foam solutions can safeguard several high-performance battery applications against temperatures of 205°C.

So how can you determine which performance seal for electric vehicle battery thermal management is right for you? Simple. Get in touch with us today. Our team of experts is here to help you find the ideal high-temperature performance seal for your electric vehicle battery. Just get in touch and we’ll be there for you.

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