Thermal runaway (TR) of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) represents a critical safety challenge in EV applications. This study explores the potential of data-driven safety management strategies for mitigating TR risks in EVs. To minimize the impact of external environmental factors on the degradation of LIBs, experiments were conducted using an accelerating rate calorimeter (ARC). The intrinsic thermal behavior of six nickel–cobalt–manganese (NCM) cells at different states of health (SOH) and operating temperatures has been captured in created adiabatic conditions. Multiple sensors were deployed to monitor the temperature and electrochemical and environmental parameters throughout the degradation process until TR occurred. The results show that both the thermal and electrochemical stability of LIBs have been affected, exhibiting consistent thermal patterns and early electrochemical instability. Furthermore, even under adiabatic conditions, the degradation of LIBs show synergistic effects with environmental parameters such as chamber temperature and pressure. Correlation analysis further revealed the coupling relationships between the monitored parameters. Through calculating their correlation coefficients, the results indicate advantages of combining thermal, electrochemical, and environmental parameters as being to characterize the degradation of LIBs and enhance the identification of TR precursors. These findings stress the importance of considering the battery-environment system as a whole in safety management of EVs. They also provide insights into the development of data-driven safety management strategies, highlighting the potential for achievement and integration of anomaly detection, diagnosis, and prognostics functions in current EV management frameworks.

This study focuses on the thermal runaway (TR) risk of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) and explores data-driven multi-sensor early warning and risk-oriented prognostics based on the intrinsic thermal behavior of batteries. A framework is proposed to support health information extraction using multi-sensor monitoring data, where data-driven approaches are adopted to address multicollinearity among parameters and explore their synergistic effects. The identified health-related features help characterize abnormal behavior and model health index propagation under TR evolution, which support the design of warning points and estimation of remaining time before TR (time-to-TR). The framework is validated through a designed experiment, where the Accelerating Rate Calorimeter (ARC) is employed to create adiabatic conditions for LIBs. The experiment helps minimize external impacts during TR evolution and validate the framework according to the intrinsic characteristics of batteries related to TR risks. The results from Leave-One-Sample-Out cross-validation preliminarily demonstrate the application potential of identified feature behavior patterns in early warning and risk-oriented prognostics. The integration of these functions can enhance the current TR risk management solutions, transforming monitoring data into decision support information for proactive risk mitigation.