US Patent 7297438 Cooling device for battery pack

In a battery pack including a plurality of rechargeable batteries arranged in parallel so as to interpose cooling medium paths therebetween, a cooling medium feeding device for feeding a cooling medium to the cooling medium paths is provided. One end of a heat pipe is thermally connected to the downstream side of the battery pack in the flow direction of the cooling medium, whereas the other end of the heat pipe is exposed in a portion having a lower temperature than the downstream side. In this structure, the battery pack is cooled by flow of the cooling medium, while a portion at the downstream side of the cooling medium is cooled with the heat pipe so as to uniformly cool the battery pack.