A World First: TotalEnergies Lubrifiants Integrated an Immersion-Cooled Battery in the Renault Mégane E-Tech

TotalEnergies made history by equipping a hybrid road car with an immersion-cooled battery with its “Cell-Shield” fluid technology. Today, the Company is going one step further with a unique prototype of a mass-market vehicle in Immersion Cooling.

In 2022, TotalEnergies Lubrifiants applied its groundbreaking technology to a road vehicle, replacing the battery cooling system on a Volvo XC90 plug-in hybrid with an immersion system and its “Cell-Shield” fluid. In terms of performance, thanks to this special fluid, the results were immediate: faster charging, better cooling, increased safety and reduced cost and weight, without the need to modify the battery or vehicle design.

The first consumer car with immersion cooling technology

This time, TotalEnergies Lubrifiants has integrated an immersion-cooled battery in a mass-market vehicle, the 100% electric Renault Mégane E-Tech. Through this project on a widespread consumer vehicle, TotalEnergies demonstrated the relevance of this advanced cooling system thanks to the unique advantages of its “Cell-Shield” fluid and the feasibility of its large-scale integration at a limited cost.

A key technology of the future

Immersion cooling of lithium batteries is seen as the optimum solution to the demands of ultra-fast charging, as it meets the challenges of the next generation of electric cars, by enabling to reduce the size and weight of the battery while increasing its autonomy.  On this demonstrator, it was possible to reduce the charge time by a factor of 2 and increase the autonomy of the vehicle by 6%. This demonstrated that immersion cooling frees the constraints associated with the heating of lithium cells. Finally, the “Cell-Shield” fluid with its outstanding properties enables to achieve unprecedented levels of safety by containing thermal runaway.

Pascal Correia, Director of Technology & Product Engineering at TotalEnergies Lubrifiants added: “We are very proud of the trust the car manufacturers have placed in us for this innovative project. Our work has demonstrated the immense potential of immersion cooling with the fluids developed by our Research & Development teams. The fact that we have succeeded in grafting our system onto a production vehicle demonstrates its potential on a large scale.”

TotalEnergies | https://totalenergies.com/