Patent ID: 7492129

Claim:
A temperature abnormality detecting apparatus that detects a temperature abnormality in a secondary battery having a plurality of battery cells, comprising: a measuring device that measures temperatures of at least two battery cells from among the plurality of battery cells; a temperature equalizing device that equalizes the temperatures of the plurality of battery cells by cooling the plurality of battery cells by supplying a cooling medium thereto; a determining device which determines whether the secondary battery has been sufficiently cooled by the cooling medium, including a calculating device that calculates a cooling time to sufficiently cool the secondary battery by applying a temperature difference between a maximum temperature of the temperatures of the battery cells measured by the measuring device to a pre-stored parabolic relationship between the temperature difference and the cooling time; a first detector that detects an operating time of the temperature equalizing device; a second detector that detects a temperature abnormality in the secondary battery based on the measured temperatures of the battery cells and determines whether there is the temperature abnormality in the secondary battery after the temperature equalizing device has been operated only for the calculated cooling time; and a controller which detects a temperature increase in a predetermined period of time in the measured temperature of each of the battery cells, wherein the determining device determines that the secondary battery has been sufficiently cooled when the detected operating time is equal to the calculated cooling time and when the temperature increase in at least one of the battery cells is equal to, or less than, a predetermined amount of change.