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To expand on Olin's answer about power dissipation, one theory is EX/ATEX qualification for explosive environments. This is likely needed for these kind of cars, given the massive energy in those batteries. 

For EX qualification you are not allowed to have a thermal peak somewhere on the board in case of faults. Film resistors are regarded as safe components, since they are expected to break like a fuse upon too high currents. But you'll want to spread the heat as evenly as possible across the board. Depending on what EX classification you are aiming for, there are different temperature requirements.

There's other places on the same board where they have grouped together several 2512. For EX you could add such very low ohm resistors in series with voltage regulators and other such components likely to give off a lot of heat in case of shorts somewhere.

This is just speculation, but the boards we made in an EX project I was involved in ended up with a lot of 2512 in weird places, seemingly nonsensical if you didn't know why they were placed there.