[shogun_man]

I came across an article (https://www.evconnect.com/blog/how-l...r-battery-last) which mentions the following.

EVs with liquid-cooled batteries see better battery life retention because they maintain lower operating temperatures

I also recall reading that the first gen Nissan Leaf with the Gen 1 air-cooled batteries had a very bad battery life till Nissan redesigned the batteries. This got me wondering about the air cooled Li-ion batteries in the hybrid Maruti GV/Toyota UC Hyryder & the Honda City Hybrid & also the EVs with air cooled batteries - Citroen eC3 & most of the electric 2-wheelers in India - Specifically if these would face premature battery failure due to their being air cooled?

[pram_ind]

Originally Posted by shogun_man

I came across an article (https://www.evconnect.com/blog/how-l...r-battery-last) which mentions the following.

EVs with liquid-cooled batteries see better battery life retention because they maintain lower operating temperatures

I also recall reading that the first gen Nissan Leaf with the Gen 1 air-cooled batteries had a very bad battery life till Nissan redesigned the batteries. This got me wondering about the air cooled Li-ion batteries in the hybrid Maruti GV/Toyota UC Hyryder & the Honda City Hybrid & also the EVs with air cooled batteries - Citroen eC3 & most of the electric 2-wheelers in India - Specifically if these would face premature battery failure due to their being air cooled?

Nissan Leaf uses/used Nickel-Cobalt-LI batteries which are temperature sensitive and so used to degrade faster, when exposed to higher/Lower temps.
But current gen cars like Citroen Ec3 uses Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries which are more tolerant to these Climatic changes, so should last longer.

[shogun_man]

Thanks for your reply. I just checked the Citroen India website & I found the following details for the following details for the battery.

Battery Type : High energy density Lithium-Ion battery Pack

I guess BYD are the only ones in India using LFP batteries.

[Shreyans_Jain]

My Nexon EV keeps the AC condenser fan running continuously while charging during summers. Battery cooling. Sometimes the car even diverts the cooling from the cabin towards the batteries for some time while driving, during particularly hot afternoons. My car shows an overall 4% energy being used for just battery conditioning over the past one month, including plenty of night driving. During afternoon drives, I have seen this figure rise to as much as 8%, and a further 25-28% energy being used by the climate control to cool the cabin.



I shudder to think what becomes of batteries which are only air cooled during 50 degree summer heat. People buying such cars are brave indeed.

[Shresth_EV]

Originally Posted by shogun_man

I guess BYD are the only ones in India using LFP batteries.

Tata and MG also use LFP, almost 80% 4W EVs are LFP in India



Temperature resistance

LFP liquid cooled > NMC liquid cooled > LFP air cooled > NMC air cooled

(Most durable in high temp to least durable in high temp)

This got me wondering about the air cooled Li-ion batteries in the hybrid Maruti GV/Toyota UC Hyryder & the Honda City Hybrid

All hybrids in India have air cooled batteries only, GV, hyryder and eHEV have lithium ion (chemistry unknown) while invicto/hycross and Camry/lexus have NiMH

I have seen few Camry hybrid listings on OLX/Quickr where the owner said that either the car has undergone battery replacement already under 100K km (later toyota raised warranty to 160K km) or the car had worn out batteries and being sold for proportionally lesser cost.

Even the legacy of Prius is not applicable to our hybrids as Prius used NiMH too, until the latest MY24 Prius, which is now lithium ion. So the pointers about hybrid longevity are all for the NiMH models.

NiMH has different properties and cycle count than lithium ion so that data cannot be applied to lithium ion hybrid’s longevity.

In either case, news from repair shops is not inspiring confidence either :

Land Rover mild hybrid :

BMW hybrid :

Porsche hybrid :

It still seems Toyota ones are most reliable as far as NiMH is concerned, not enough data is available on Li ion hybrids.

What sticks out most, is that the replacement costs are too high (even higher than EV batteries at times) and that there is almost no reuse value, unlike EV batteries which can be grid storage for solar backup, or in ICE2EV conversions kits (like Zack’s Hummer EV or Teslarossa)

Originally Posted by Shresth_EV

Land Rover mild hybrid : https://x.com/evclinic/status/180339...KiRyn52BjJWtuw

BMW hybrid : https://x.com/evclinic/status/180166...KiRyn52BjJWtuw

Porsche hybrid : https://x.com/evclinic/status/180313...KiRyn52BjJWtuw

Dusty air more likely to damage hybrid batteries : https://x.com/motorist_nyabu/status/...KiRyn52BjJWtuw

Clogged air vents near rear seats in hybrids due to dust, human and pet hair : https://x.com/motorist_nyabu/status/...KiRyn52BjJWtuw

[shogun_man]

Ather has been around for a few years with one of the best engineered electric scooters which are using air cooled li-ion batteries. Does anyone have any data on their battery life?

[Alive2Drive]

I own an Ioniq 5 and am aware that it has a liquid cooled NMC battery. Also, all the mercedes EVs have liquid cooled EVs.

I am aware as there is a coolant cost every 60000 kms where the battery coolant is replaced and its estimate cost is around 15 to 19 thousand INR.

[ALTIMAed]

Originally Posted by shogun_man

Thanks for your reply. I just checked the Citroen India website & I found the following details for the following details for the battery.

Battery Type : High energy density Lithium-Ion battery Pack

I guess BYD are the only ones in India using LFP batteries.

I have been told, BYD uses LFP with blade technology. MG also uses LFP batteries in their ZSEV and Comet. The battery of the ZSEV is liquid cooled, where as Comet is air cooled.

[ALTIMAed]

Originally Posted by Shreyans_Jain

My Nexon EV keeps the AC condenser fan running continuously while charging during summers. Battery cooling. Sometimes the car even diverts the cooling from the cabin towards the batteries for some time while driving, during particularly hot afternoons. My car shows an overall 4% energy being used for just battery conditioning over the past one month, including plenty of night driving. During afternoon drives, I have seen this figure rise to as much as 8%, and a further 25-28% energy being used by the climate control to cool the cabin.

Attachment 2623121

I shudder to think what becomes of batteries which are only air cooled during 50 degree summer heat. People buying such cars are brave indeed.

Yet to face any issue in my Comet. Purchased on 11th Nov 23, it has seen the worst of the NCR heat. In the Comet too, while it charges, one can hear the ac fans' whirring sound.

[Shreyans_Jain]

Originally Posted by ALTIMAed

Yet to face any issue in my Comet. Purchased on 11th Nov 23, it has seen the worst of the NCR heat. In the Comet too, while it charges, one can hear the ac fans' whirring sound.

I haven’t faced any issue either. Just sharing firsthand experience.

[ishekk]

In MG ZS EV, during Delhi's June heatwave with temperatures around 45 C, battery cooling was consuming so much energy that I was getting less than 250 KM of range.

Liquid/air cooling only helps if outside temperature is below 40 C. In case of ZS EV, if the car was standing still, it was continously withdrawing 3.5 KW power. Don't know out of 3.5 kw, how much is spent on ac compressor and how much on liquid circulation.

Originally Posted by pram_ind

Nissan Leaf uses/used Nickel-Cobalt-LI batteries which are temperature sensitive and so used to degrade faster, when exposed to higher/Lower temps.
But current gen cars like Citroen Ec3 uses Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries which are more tolerant to these Climatic changes, so should last longer.

LFP batteries are more temperature resistant in the sense that they can safely operate at higher temperatures as compared to NMC batteries. Also their thermal runaway point is higher. This doesn't translates to that their degradation would be lower if used at higher temperatures.

[DIY410]

Originally Posted by ishekk

In MG ZS EV, during Delhi's June heatwave with temperatures around 45 C, battery cooling was consuming so much energy that I was getting less than 250 KM of range.

Liquid/air cooling only helps if outside temperature is below 40 C. In case of ZS EV, if the car was standing still, it was continously withdrawing 3.5 KW power. Don't know out of 3.5 kw, how much is spent on ac compressor and how much on liquid circulation.

What color is your MG ZS and does it have a sunroof.

[ishekk]

Originally Posted by DIY410

What color is your MG ZS and does it have a sunroof.

Red with panoramic sunroof. But this cannot be correalted to high energy consumption. The power consumption by ac for cooling the car cabin is just 0.8 KW and all the rest of it is used for cooling car battery pack.

[DIY410]

Originally Posted by ishekk

Red with panoramic sunroof. But this cannot be correalted to high energy consumption. The power consumption by ac for cooling the car cabin is just 0.8 KW and all the rest of it is used for cooling car battery pack.

The motor/inverter, On Board Charger/DC-DC unit, Battery are all liquid cooled. So the color of bonnet will definitely play a role. While red is still better then Black, Grey, Blue but for a EV a white color is preferred.

[Cresterk]

Originally Posted by Shresth_EV

All hybrids in India have air cooled batteries only, GV, hyryder and eHEV have lithium ion (chemistry unknown) while invicto/hycross and Camry/lexus have NiMH

I have seen few Camry hybrid listings on OLX/Quickr where the owner said that either the car has undergone battery replacement already under 100K km (later toyota raised warranty to 160K km) or the car had worn out batteries and being sold for proportionally lesser cost.

Even the legacy of Prius is not applicable to our hybrids as Prius used NiMH too, until the latest MY24 Prius, which is now lithium ion. So the pointers about hybrid longevity are all for the NiMH models.

I was curious so I dug through teambhp to figure out the cost of hybrid battery replacement on a camry out of warranty

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/offic...ml#post5013137 (Driven: Toyota Camry Hybrid)

Seems like it is around 2.6L. After the goodwill discount, it turned out to be around 1L. Not that steep considering this is an imported 50L car and it might only happen once during ownership period of more than 10 years. The non-discounted price would come out to around 2.5% of the cost of the car, which is a far cry from the exorbitant costs in the examples posted of European hybrids.


With the standard 8 year/160k kms hybrid warranty on all their cars today, I don't think it will be as big of an issue.

Personally, if the battery fails on my NiMh hybrid out of warranty, I'm planning to use the opportunity to upgrade the battery to something better like from project lithium : https://projectlithium.com/pages/faqs

Hopefully, I can source it to India. I find it's generally a better idea to go for 3rd party for fast improving tech instead of overpaying for 10 year old OEM tech.


As for Lithium ion vs NiMh, it's only the Prius that switched to Li recently. The RAV4 plug in hybrid has had Li battery packs since 2019, and I believe some Lexus models have been using it even earlier. Even the Camry was available with both Li or NiMh battery packs based on region and trim.