The patent describes how existing high-voltage battery packs are liquid cooled, which is good, but in most cases, the flow and/or temperature “around certain cells in the pack has been uneven […] leading to some battery cells receiving less cooling,” which obviously leads to higher temperatures.
That’s a problem for all the series-connected cells (or modules further comprising multiple series or parallel-connected cells) because when one cell needs the current passing through it to be lowered so that it can cool down, all the other cells connected to it must reduce their current too.
Now, to prevent the EV from becoming a lazy lump of slowness, some battery packs will simply build in some extra capacity to account for the losses from these temporarily derated cells. Aston Martin’s design aims to optimize the flow and reduce the need to compensate for derating instances with extra cells that add weight.
