Visteon launches thermal management products for Li-ion batteries in hybrid and electric vehicles

26 September 2012

Visteon Corporation, a leading global automotive supplier, recently launched products featuring different approaches to battery thermal management on a number of new electric and hybrid vehicles.

One architecture uses coolant-based contact heat exchangers, while a second employs a refrigerant-based battery cooling and heating approach. In both systems, Visteon’s battery contact heat exchanger is connected with the air conditioning system to reject heat from the battery into the coolant or refrigerant, depending on the vehicle. This helps improve battery performance and prevent premature aging of cells. Visteon engineers and manufactures components for both battery thermal management architectures in Europe.

Visteon’s coolant-based solution employs a battery cooling and heating architecture, in which heat from the lithium-ion batteries is transferred into the coolant system. When the battery needs to be cooled, the air conditioning system is used to decrease the temperature of the coolant. This is made possible by Visteon’s coolant-to-refrigerant battery chiller, which reuses current heat exchanger technology in an innovative and cost-effective design solution. When battery heating is needed, Visteon heaters immersed in the coolant turn on.