Shell says immersion cooling fluid can cut EV charging to under 10 minutes

Shell Lubricants said it has developed a proprietary immersion cooling fluid that allows electric-vehicle batteries to charge from 10% to 80% in under 10 minutes, a performance the company described as a potential solution to two major barriers to EV adoption: charging speed and range anxiety.

The technology, developed with engineering firm RML Group and using Shell’s Gas-to-Liquid (GTL) chemistry, is a single-phase, electrically non-conductive thermal management fluid designed to fill the interstitial spaces within a battery pack so that the liquid is in direct contact with each cell. Shell said the fluid reduces thermal stresses by enabling much higher charging currents while maintaining consistent temperatures across the pack and offering protection against thermal events.

In a laboratory demonstration, Shell and RML built a 34 kWh battery pack and used the EV-Plus Thermal Liquid to achieve a 10% to 80% charge in under 10 minutes. Shell said that when paired with a carefully engineered vehicle — one it modelled as lightweight, aerodynamic and operating at about 10 km per kWh — the system could add the equivalent of about 24 kilometres of range per minute of charging. The company contrasted that with a typical figure of roughly 5 kilometres per minute currently attained by many battery-electric vehicles.

Robert Mainwaring, Shell’s lead engineer on the project, said the aim was to show how EV-Plus Thermal Fluids can support faster charging "without compromising cell integrity and lifetime." Jason Wong, global executive vice president at Shell Lubricants, said the effort builds on the company’s experience in high-performance transformer oils and single-phase immersion cooling fluids used in data centres.

Shell said immersion cooling optimises performance while reducing the number and mass of components, enabling smaller, lighter battery designs that the company estimates could deliver as much as five times the range addition per minute of charging compared with many existing BEVs. The company added that the approach can be used with the existing public charging network, though it said vehicle and battery-pack thermal design must be carefully coordinated to realise the claimed charging rates.

The fluid is electrically non-conductive, which Shell said is critical for safety because it prevents short circuits while enabling direct liquid contact with cells to remove heat more effectively than air or conventional coolant channels. Shell described the GTL-based formulation as an evolution of its lubricant and transformer-oil expertise adapted for EV thermal management.

The demonstration marks another step by oil and gas companies into electrification technologies. Shell Lubricants is a division of Shell Global that supplies oils and fluids to the automotive and industrial sectors, and the company has previously promoted GTL-based products and single-phase immersion cooling in other high-heat applications.

Shell framed the development as a laboratory and engineering demonstration rather than a commercial product rollout. The company did not provide a timeline for vehicle-maker integration, mass production, regulatory approvals or widespread market availability. It also did not disclose independent third-party validation of long-term cell lifetime or large-scale safety testing beyond the engineering trial performed with RML.

Automakers, battery manufacturers and charging-network operators will have to evaluate how immersion-cooled packs interact with vehicle design, safety standards and charging infrastructure before the technology can be broadly adopted. In particular, achieving the high charge currents implied by the under-10-minute 10%–80% profile typically requires chargers and connectors capable of delivering very large power levels and battery systems engineered to accept them.

Shell said the approach can reduce thermal gradients and allow higher sustained charging currents without compromising lifetime, but the company did not publish detailed longevity or degradation data in its announcement. The demonstration used a 34 kWh pack; industry comparisons will depend on how similar performance scales in larger-capacity packs and across different cell chemistries.

The company presented the development as part of a broader strategy to "enable more value with less emissions" by bringing lubricant and fluid technologies into the EV supply chain. Shell said it will continue collaborative work with partners to refine the fluid and pack designs and to explore commercialization pathways.

The announcement was published in mid-September 2025. Shell’s claims add to a range of approaches under development in the automotive and charging industries to shorten charging times, from higher-power chargers and improved battery chemistries to vehicle-level thermal management. Widespread adoption of any approach will depend on integration with automakers’ designs, regulatory approvals and the ability of charging networks and grid infrastructure to support higher power delivery.

Shell did not immediately respond to requests for additional technical papers, independent test results or a timetable for wider deployment.