The design was likely necessary in order to cool the battery packs. The liquid filled cooling strips are interwoven between the batteries. I've seen some videos that battery designers are trying to make them more modular with a different cooling method.
Yes, seen that also. Evidently the discipline of FMEA has become obsolete as this would/should have been a show stopper.
That and non-permanent (i.e. welded) connections between modules would have lower reliability, higher resistance, more fire danger, weigh more, and take more space..
I’m thinking this is EV model specific. For example, Tesla changed their battery design so that it’s more built into the frame (not exactly, but kinda). That’s part of the huge cost in replacing a battery on those Teslas.
I was amazed when I saw an ev car battery opened up. Hundreds of 18650 cells in series and parallel with an aluminum cooling jacket wrapped around each row.
Given that a cylindrical batteries’container provides a level of safety prismatic pouch batteries do not, and with all the engineered cooling, it is significant the ev batteries still pose a higher than normal fire risk.
Tells me the engineers are trying ever so hard to fit a square peg into a round hole but it just will not fit.