An electric vehicle battery pack configured to rapidly discharge one or more individual battery cells within a multi-cell battery arrangement to mitigate a propagation of a multi-cell thermal runaway event, the vehicle battery pack including a plurality of battery cells and a battery management system including sensing circuitry configured to sense one or more conditions of the plurality of battery cells, a processor configured to process data sensed by the sensing circuitry to determine whether any of the plurality of battery cells is experiencing the onset of a thermal runaway event, and a control engine configured to isolate and rapidly discharge a potential energy from a battery cell experiencing the onset of a thermal runaway event, thereby mitigating a potential for a propagation of a thermal runaway event experienced by a single cell into a multi-cell thermal runaway event.