stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Fair point, but the cooling capacity would be a factor of the fan and the radiator. The current battery cooling system is able to handle 500+kW of discharge power (when the reaction is exothermic, so actual heat is higher than when charging). Of course the car is moving at that point. When stationary it largely depends on how much airflow the fans can get going. They can use more powerful fans to offset the need for as large a radiator area.To be fair, the battery pack needs to be kept cooler than an ICE, which means you need more efficient cooling, especially with high ambient temperatures.
The Model S battery pack is kept at under 55C, using active cooling. If the ambient temperature is 40C, you only have a 15C temperature difference. If you need to get rid of 17.5 kW, that means you need to have a radiator heating roughly one cubic meter of air from 40 to 55 C every second.
It makes for a big radiator, but it's certainly not impossible.
Not an AC expert, so I'm not going to dive into how to do the temperature differential and BTU calculations. You would have to factor in that at most it will be near peak power for under 10 minutes (judging from existing supercharger sessions), while a ICE car would have to be designed to idle for much longer (for example in bumper to bumper traffic).