While more and more people take to the roads every year in new electric vehicles (EV), one issue holds them back from revolutionizing the way we live: cooling. While not totally unsafe, current cooling methods used in EVs keep them from becoming the common household feature that is currently taken by the internal combustion engine.
Immersion Cooling (IC) could be the technology that unlocks the potential of the electric vehicles market. Immersion coolants present unique challenges and opportunities for both fluid and vehicle manufacturers. Essentially, it involves submerging an EVs battery pack and/or other heat-generating components in a dielectric fluid. This technology could reshape the future of how we build transportation and solve the problems keeping EVs from replacing the internal combustion engine.
The Growing EV Demand
The electric vehicle market in the US has seen explosive growth over the past several years. What started as somewhat of an experimental fad, has turned into the fastest growing automotive market in a century. Tesla’s dominance is well known – with over 500,000 more sales in 2022, five times more than their nearest competitor in Ford.
All in all, over 900,000 electric vehicles were sold in 2022, 2.5 times higher than 2018. They’re expected to represent 40% of the entire US passenger vehicle market by 2030.
The Problem in a Nutshell
What’s stopping electric vehicles from becoming the most popular type of vehicle on the American market? Currently, most EV battery packs are cooled either through air cooling, or cold plate battery packs. While air cooling has been around for over a century, it’s often not efficient enough for battery packs designed to carry you as far as a normal combustion engine would – especially in hot environments. While cold plate technology is effective, it’s also overly complex, prone to leaks and adds a lot of weight to your car.
Current Challenges for EV Cooling
- Uniformity: Keeping all cells the same temperature is crucial. Uneven cooling harms performance and safety.
- Extreme temperatures: Existing systems can struggle in scorching deserts or frigid winters.
- Complexity: Liquid systems increase maintenance needs and potential failure points.
- Efficiency: Balancing good cooling with energy efficiency is tricky.
- Reactivity: cannot react or degrade battery cells, must not conduct electricity.
- Safety: Existing systems can not only struggle but can pose a real danger to the driver and vehicle in certain operating climates.
Immersion cooling has the opportunity to solve all of these challenges, cutting back on weight, inefficiencies, leak risk and more.
The Lube-Tech Advantage
Lube-Tech has two fluids in development to tackle these challenges and propel EVs into the next level of consumer product.
Enviro-Cool
Syn-Cool
- Negative global-warming potential
- Optimized heat transfer and oxidative properties
- 100% bio-derived and biodegradable
- Synthetic hydrocarbon
- Optimized thermal and heat transfer properties
With 30 years of experience, Lube-Tech has produced fluids for some of the largest companies in the world. Medical device manufacturers, food processors and energy producers have all utilized our ability to design and test oil and other products to specifically meet the unique demands of complex industries. Our chemists develop over 100 custom formulas each year, including industrial lubricants, additives, cleaners and coolants.
Being at the forefront of innovative solutions, we aim to tackle the challenges of the EV fluid market head on.
