The transition from gasoline automobiles to electric vehicles (EVs) is promoted as an alternative to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) and pollutant emissions. The performance of EVs depends entirely on the performance of a power battery, especially the lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery, which is very sensitive to temperature. The temperature of Li-ion battery must be controlled and maintained within a desired range. This paper provides two aspects: (i) a review on research progress in battery thermal management (BTM) with emphasis on battery technology of commercial EVs and phase change material (PCM) based hybrid thermal management and (ii) a developed passive thermal management for prismatic Li-ion battery module under abuse operation condition. The hybrid thermal management combining PCM based with air/liquid/heat pipes can provide superior thermal performance than any active or passive alone. Improving the existing battery thermal management system along with exploring novel techniques to regulate thermal impact and power consumption are required. For the developed battery module, thermal performance based on finite element method is analyzed in a situation where the PCM content surrounding the batteries is reduced due to leakage or toppled over of PCM during melting process. Two different configurations are considered. The open medium configuration exhibited better performance in decreasing the maximum temperature by 1.172 ◦C, 1.396 ◦C, 1.628 ◦C, and 1.860 ◦C in the module at various PCM shrink levels of 2, 4, 6, and 8 mm, respectively.