Significance: Range anxiety is a key reason that consumers are reluctant to embrace electric vehicles (EVs). To be truly competitive with gasoline vehicles, EVs should allow drivers to recharge quickly anywhere in any weather, like refueling gasoline cars. However, none of today’s EVs allow fast charging in cold or even cool temperatures due to the risk of lithium plating, the formation of metallic lithium that drastically reduces battery life and even results in safety hazards. Here, we present an approach that enables 15-min fast charging of Li-ion batteries in any temperatures (even at −50 °C) while still preserving remarkable cycle life (4,500 cycles, equivalent to >12 y and >280,000 miles of EV lifetime), thus making EVs truly weather-independent.

Temperature is critical to the performance, durability and safety of Li-ion batteries. This paper reports in situ measurement of the radial temperature distribution inside a cylindrical Li-ion battery cell. 18650-size cylindrical cells with multiple micro thermocouples embedded are designed and manufactured. The radial temperature distribution is obtained under various operating conditions. The effects of critical parameters, such as discharge C rate, ambient temperature, and cooling condition, are investigated. It is found that higher discharge C rate and lower ambient temperature lead to higher temperature rise and larger temperature gradient within the battery cell. Stronger cooling results in smaller temperature rise but larger temperature gradient. Correlation between relative temperature gradient and cooling coefficient suggests that the assumption of uniform temperature distribution is applicable under natural-convection conditions but not applicable under strong forced convection conditions. The present results provide valuable experimental data that can be readily used to validate electrochemical-thermal coupled (ECT) battery models.