Simulating the Heat: How Virtual Thermal Models Are Redefining Electric Vehicle Design

Amid the worldwide competition to electrify the car industry, one problem has been proving a challenge even for the most talented engineers: heat. Invisible as it may be, it has immense power—it dictates battery life, charging speed, passenger comfort, and even how far an electric vehicle (EV) can go on a tank. For years, to overcome these challenges meant long hours of physical trials with costly prototypes, simulating arctic blizzards or desert heat waves within huge laboratories.

That reality is changing. More and more test tracks and rooms are giving way to lines of code, as advanced simulations do the work previously left to prototypes. At the heart of that revolution is Vijaychandar Sanikal, a virtual thermal modeling specialist whose work has redefined the way automakers create tomorrow's EVs.

His career path has been far from typical. Trained as a computational fluid dynamics engineer in India, he built a career that eventually brought him to the United States, where he is now a Subject Matter Expert at Stellantis’ R\&D division. Over the past decade, he has worked across computer-aided engineering, cloud computing, and software calibration, holding leadership roles at two of America’s Big Three automakers. His determination has enabled virtual thermal modeling to come out of specialized niches and become a standard component of green car engineering, saving money, eliminating error, and cutting design cycles by several orders of magnitude

Securing such a position in such a tradition-attached industry took more than technological talent. Automakers entrusted their confidence in physical prototypes and on-road testing for decades, being cynical about digital solutions. Persuading decision-makers to have faith in simulations meant demonstrating time and again that the virtual would be equal to, indeed superior to, the real. Vijaychandar and his team conducted exhaustive correlation tests, demonstrating that the models could reflect physical results with over 90 percent accuracy. The statistics were convincing, but so was his skill at packaging the technology not simply as faster, but wiser. As he has sometimes explained, the idea is not velocity for its own sake, but building cars that are more durable, dependable, and economical.

The fruits of this new direction are remarkable. His work produced a 20 percent efficiency in thermal test time, cutting dependence on costly, energy-guzzling facilities. By combining 0D, 1D, and 3D simulations, his team simulated conditions from sub-freezing cold start-ups to searing desert roads. Perhaps most significantly, he enhanced prediction accuracy of range for warm weather by 25 percent, a vital consideration for drivers concerned with not making it to their destinations without running out of power. By incorporating thermal behavior into EV range algorithms, cars could better manage energy, providing drivers with more confidence and manufacturers a distinct competitive advantage.

In addition to his industrial success, Vijaychandar has always given back to the wider engineering community. His work has been published in renowned journals like the SAE International Journal of Advances & Current Practices in Mobility and the International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology. His papers on extreme cold thermal systems and digital twins for Industry 4.0 have set bench benchmarks, making his work resonate far beyond his clients' companies.

His work now extends the boundaries even more, investigating adaptive technologies that learn and develop over time. Digital twin systems, climate control machine learning platforms, and thermal-aware charging routines are no longer pipedreams but ongoing development. The aim is for vehicles to continually learn from actual-world data, refining their thermal behavior over their entire life cycle for maximum efficiency, comfort, and safety.

There is also an environmental dividend. By diminishing demand for prototypes and on-large scales testing facilities, Vijaychandar's methodology diminishes the carbon footprint of car development. His modular model architectures are versatile and can be used across brands and body types with consistency and scalability on a process that was once deemed extremely bespoke.

As car companies sprint towards an all-electric future, pioneers such as Vijaychandar Sanikal are not merely enabling them to keep pace—they are remaking the very nature of car-building. By overcoming one of the most basic challenges facing EVs with a combination of technical expertise and determination, he has guaranteed tomorrow's cars not merely will be cleaner, but smarter, safer, and more reliable—well before the first one rolls off the factory assembly line.