The battery management system (BMS) is a core component to ensure the efficient and safe operation of electric vehicles, and the practical evaluation of key BMS functions is thus of great importance. However, the testing of a BMS with actual battery packs suffers from a poor testing repeatability and a long status transition time due to the uncontrollable degradation of battery systems and testing environment variations. In this paper, to overcome this challenge, we propose an efficient BMS testing framework that uses virtual battery packs rather than actual ones, thus enabling a rapid and accurate evaluation of a BMSs key functions. A series-connected virtual battery pack model through leveraging Copula’s method is formulated to capture the dynamics and inconsistency of individual batteries in the pack. The developed lithium iron phosphate model features low computational efforts and is experimentally validated with different dynamical profiles, implying a high-precision virtual battery pack that is capable of reproducing the actual one. Furthermore, this framework includes a closed-loop testing platform, which can provide the state-of-charge/state-of-power references and thus automatically test and evaluate the states of the battery packs estimated from the BMS. Particularly, we consider the initial polarization that often exists in the batteries during the operation to accurately calibrate the available state-of-power benchmark of battery packs in the real world. The performed BMS testing results using the proposed framework illustrate that the tested BMS cannot adapt to the varied operation conditions, thus leading to high state estimation errors, which may result in the over-charge/discharge or over-temperature of the batteries. Therefore, this work highlights the value of effective BMS testing, providing the promising potential to achieve reliability and durability for battery systems.

Thermal runaway (TR) initiation and propagation tests are essential for evaluating the safety of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). However, differences among existing standards in application scenarios, test levels, initiation methods, boundary conditions, and acceptance criteria hinder direct comparison and cross-level transfer of safety evidence. This study reviews representative standards and experimental research concerning road vehicles, industrial batteries, stationary energy storage, and railway transportation. External heating, nail penetration, overcharge, built-in devices, and induction heating are compared in terms of target failures, energy input, structural disturbance, and source-term characterization. The analysis shows that TR initiation methods, together with cell chemistry, state of charge, capacity, and format, determine thermal, gaseous, and ejecta source terms. Cell spacing, electrical connections, thermal management, mechanical constraints, and enclosure ventilation and pressure relief further govern propagation pathways and system-level consequences. Accordingly, a multilevel evidence chain is proposed, encompassing target-failure definition, cell-level initiation-method qualification, module- or representative-propagation-unit validation, pack/system-level consequence assessment, and product-change review. A six-risk-domain equivalence-assessment method is also established to address source terms, topology, thermal pathways, protection, enclosure boundaries, and personnel exposure. The framework provides a traceable basis for interpreting cross-standard results, validating large-scale LIB systems hierarchically, and inheriting safety evidence following product changes.