TotalEnergies Lubrifiants announced it retrofitted a production vehicle with an immersion-cooled battery.

TotalEnergies said the reason was to demonstrate the immediate advantages of its technologies, developed using a simulator, by modifying the cooling system of the battery of a production car (Volvo XC 90 hybrid) into an immersion cooling system.

The result was that the electrical charging time was divided by 4 because of the better thermal control of the cells, with cooling power multiplied by 7, the company says. By means of this procedure, overall safety and the sustainability of the lithium cells were boosted. Finally, a 4% decrease in weight of the battery pack was measured and a 5.6% decrease in the cost was estimated on the Volvo vehicle, due to a system that is easier to implement. 

By using innovative dielectric fluids, TotalEnergies Lubrifiants says it will be able to assist in the deployment of electric vehicles that offer greater range and recharge more rapidly.

“We are very proud of the confidence that the car manufacturers have placed in us in the framework of this innovative project,” said Gérard Quoirin, battery fluids product engineer at TotalEnergies. “Our work has demonstrated the immense potential of immersion cooling. The fact of having successfully grafted our system onto a production vehicle, is the demonstration of its large-scale potential.”