So, MLAUTO's explanation could also apply, but from my experience I'm still voting for battery cooling. I think what would determine which it is would be how often the cycling occurs, and for how long.
Before I retired, my afternoon commutes home during the summer would occasionally trip the car into the battery cooling I described. All running normal, AC keeping me more-or-less cool. Then I'd hear a soft click and notice the cabin would get warmer for about two minutes, then go back to normal. MLAUTO says it's a bit longer, but I really don't remember it being 5 minutes. The cycle would not happen frequently - at least 5 minutes or so between events - but then my 1,000 foot hill climb would be over and I'd soon be home. Battery temps never hit the yellow in all this; no VDS warnings, and nothing in the logs.
Fast forward to a week ago, when I drove to visit family some 220 miles away (i.e. beyond a single charge in this car). The return trip was hot, with the ambient temps in the 98 to 102 F range, and I noticed that the AC would be frequently doing short cycles. Because of the range challenge, I didn't have the AC on in the cabin, but I could feel its effect since when the AC starts to cool the battery, it also cools the cabin a bit. The battery is just a better sink for the cold, so it gets most of the benefit. The car is noisy enough at freeway speeds that I can't really hear the AC compressor, but I could hear the click, and enjoyed the slightly cooler cabin.
By the time I stopped to charge, the battery and AC compressor were apparently very warm, and I got a #1463 alert (HVAC compressor overtemp) shortly after charging started. This was reported by my OVMS v3 module, not anything visible in the cabin. Foolish me, I didn't think to check the battery temp, but looking at the logs when I returned home, it was already at 43.5 C, and still climbing during the charge. The AC was doing strangely short cycles during the charge - maybe 5 seconds on, followed by several minutes off - but no further #1463s, so I figured it was ok. In hindsight, the subsequent alerts were being suppressed as dups, and the HVAC system was really struggling.
Continuing towards home after the charge, I hit the aforementioned hill climb, and got a battery overtemp warning in the cabin. I made it home (slowed down a bunch to go easy on it), and plugged the car in. OVMS showed me that the battery was at something like 45C, and the AC system was still doing its short cycles during the charge, so I lowered the charging current to 16 amps to reduce the heat generated by charging. It finally started to cool. By morning, the battery was back to normal temps (mid-20's C) and fully charged.
During the post-drive analysis, I find there were 1,309 of the #1463 events in the log. This, I believe (hope), is a perfect example of what MLAUTO is describing as an over-fill of the HVAC system. The car's most recent yearly maintenance was just a few months ago, so the cooling fins are likely clean. But one of the items the tech noticed was that the coolant level was "a little low", so he topped it off. I think he overdid it... The car has an appointment with the SC on Tuesday.
So, from your description, I still think your scenario better matches my first battery cooling scenario (the normal one), rather than the second. If I recall, the normal scenario pulls the battery temp down by about one notch on the VDS display during its few-minute run. Better would be to take a look at the logs, but you'll need a USB stick and a laptop for the analysis. Search the archive for links to the VMSparser and TeslaGLoP log analysis tools (PC, or Linux via Wine), and the procedure for extracting the car's logs. It's a great way to learn more about how the car operates, and can give early warnings for things that aren't quite right.
Do let us know what you determine the root cause to be, and best wishes for the remainder of your trip.
