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To curb the greenhouse gas (GHG) and carbon emission in line with the Paris climate agreement, the road transportation needs to be electrified. The predicted electrification of the road transport can substantially reduce the GHG emission. The fundamental component in electric vehicles (EVs) is the power battery, in which its performance is affected by temperature. To improve the cooling performance and enhance temperature uniformity in the battery stack, a battery thermal management system (BTMS) comprising heatsinks with fluid channels and multi-phase change materials (PCMs) was investigated in this paper. The module consists of eight prismatic cells with nine fluid passages and PCMs attached at each side of the cell. The heatsink containing PCMs is separated into three equal portions, each is filled with different PCMs. The cooling effectiveness and temperature uniformity of the BTMS were carefully explored based on compactness of the battery stack and cooling fluids. The results indicate that increasing the PCMs thickness supressed the temperature rise by more than 2.85 K and provide better temperature uniformity compared to increasing the fluid channel width for the same volume of heatsink to volume of the battery unit ratio. Liquid cooling is more effective than air cooling in mitigating temperature especially at high ambient temperature. Choosing an appropriate ratio of volume of cooling channel to battery unit is particularly essential and can minimize operation cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]