A review of thermal management for Li-ion batteries: Prospects, challenges, and issues

•Li-ion batteries is mature and well settled in EV industry and can be promising in introducing fast charging technologies via required cooling system integration to the battery pack.•Thermal management is still critical and often problematic to mitigate in case of battery pack thermal load.•The advantages and disadvantages of state of the art (traditional) thermal cooling system will be discussed to show that still much room is there to investigate battery thermal physics with growing fast charging scheme.•The nanofluid cooling solutions for future electric vehicle has been pointed as potential candidate to tackle fast charging associated battery degradation. Li-ion batteries are essential component in the current generation of electric vehicles. However, further pushing electric vehicles are concerned with battery life. Since the temperature dictates battery lifetime, it is crucial to manage the heat and keep the temperature at an acceptable range within the battery pack. The benefit of a cooling system is to prevent the premature degradation of battery life. This paper provides a critical review of the so far thermal management strategy dealing with temperature within the cells, module, and packs. This paper reviews the advantages and disadvantages of state of the art (traditional) thermal cooling system. In this paper, we have reviewed separately cell, module, and pack level cooling system. The battery thermal modeling techniques and cooling system design challenges are also reviewed. This paper also reviews the future cooling system for future vehicles with rising fast charge rate and these techniques can improve the limitations of the traditional cooling system. This paper also suggests the best suitable and economically viable technology for the upcoming EVs issues.