[1970judge]

Originally Posted by DGthe3

. You're right, electric motors are (relatively) easy to cool. Give the casing some fins for extra surface area, some ventilation holes along with fan, and they're normally good to go indefinitely. And even when an electric motor gets a little hot, it still works fairly well.

Batteries, on the other hand, are not so easy to keep cool. For an electric car, just as much power flows through them (give or take) as the motors so there is lots of heat generated. And Li-ion batteries don't react very well to heat. Get them warm and they degrade. Get them hot, and they can explode.

Sure, the heat will be spread out in a battery but its a lot easier to cool a small hot thing than a big warm thing. Its not that its impossible to manage, but they'll actually have to put the time, money, and effort into getting it right. And, well, its Tesla. They're not exactly known for putting resources into getting things right ahead of time.

Quoted for accuracy