Ensuring Battery Safety in Electric Vehicles: Challenges, Developments, and Future Perspectives.

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Systems Engineering
• Automotive Engineering

Background:

• Rapid electric vehicle (EV) adoption necessitates enhanced battery safety.
• Key challenges include thermal runaway, interfacial degradation, and mechanical abuse.
• Ensuring battery reliability is vital for consumer confidence and sustainable transport.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically review critical safety challenges in EV batteries.
• To analyze failure mechanisms from atomic to module levels.
• To highlight emerging solutions and assess scalability vs. safety trade-offs.

Main Methods:

• Systematic literature review integrating material science and systems engineering.
• Analysis of failure mechanisms across multiple scales.
• Evaluation of advanced diagnostic tools, including machine learning-driven fault detection.

Main Results:

• Identified critical safety challenges: thermal runaway, interfacial degradation, mechanical abuse.
• Analyzed failure mechanisms from atomic-scale dendrites to module-level thermal propagation.
• Highlighted solutions: self-healing electrolytes, nanostructured thermal barriers, smart battery management systems.

Conclusions:

• Advanced solutions enhance EV battery resilience and energy density.
• Critical assessment of scalability versus safety trade-offs in next-generation batteries.
• Provides a roadmap for designing durable, fail-safe batteries for sustainable transportation.