Thermal and electrical characterization of an electric vehicle battery cell, an experimental investigation

•A Li-ion battery cell is characterized during charging/discharging cycles.•The non-uniformly distributed temperature changes are mapped in time.•The capacity fade is measured under different ambient teperatures.•The response is measured under different discharge rates and ambient temperatures. This paper documents the experimental characterization of a Li-ion battery cell during charging/discharging cyclic operations. The study of the battery cell is conducted in the absence of cooling aid system, and provides thermal and electrical insights. After describing the experimental set-up, the changes in temperature are presented and highlight the nonuniform distribution of the temperature on the battery cell surface. The findings indicate that the maximum temperature difference on the investigated battery cell surface may reach up to 11 C at 3C and 17 ⁰C at 5C, at the end of the discharge in the natural convection case. These changes in space come with temporal variations that are also documented. Voltage curves are provided during charging and discharging operations. The impact of the discharge rate, ambient temperature are then investigated together with the capacity fade after 500 cycles, and results showed that ventilation and low ambient temperatures allow to alleviate the battery capacity fade by 3%.