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• Develops a lightweight liquid cooling solution to cool a prismatic hard cased cell. • Effect of fluid flowing on cell thermal distribution is studied numerically. • Dimensionless analysis of cooling performance in cooling plate is performed. • Effectiveness of the lightweight solution was authenticated by an experimental test. The lightweight thermal design is a critical factor that must be taken into consideration during the lithium-ion battery pack manufacturing for electric vehicles. This work develops a lightweight liquid cooling solution to cool a prismatic hard-cased cell from its small lateral surfaces. The effects of fluid flow directions, flow rates, channel dimensions, and cooling mediums on the cell′s thermal distribution were studied. Meanwhile, a dimensionless analysis for the cooling plate performance was imposed. The simulation effectiveness was corroborated through experiments. Simulations show that the lightweight thermal design has a similar cooling effect with the conventional thermal design; crucially, the former can lower the cooling plate weight by 57% compared with the later. Effect of increasing fluid flow rate on minimizing the cell′s temperature rise and difference is positive and negative, respectively. Increasing fluid flow rate and channel width can promote the cooling plate performance. The glycol aqueous solution outperforms the liquid water to weaken the cell′s temperature difference. Experiments authenticating that an excellent effectiveness residing in the current lightweight thermal design to control the cell thermal profile within a desirable level. This work would be valuable for one to design a lightweight cooling system for a battery pack consists of prismatic hard-cased cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]