The core technology to any hybrid engine vehicle (HEV) is the design of energy management strategy (EMS). To develop a reasonable EMS, it is necessary to monitor the state of capacity, state of health and instantaneous available power of battery packs. A new method that linearizes RC equivalent circuit model and predicts battery available power according to original Dynamic Matrix Control algorithm is proposed. To verify the validity of the new algorithm, a bench test with lithium-ion battery cell and a HEV test with lithium-ion battery packs are carried out. The bench test results indicate that a single RC block equivalent circuit model could be used to describe the dynamic and the steady state characteristics of a battery under testing conditions. However, lacking of long time constant of RC modules, there is a sample deviation in the open-circuit voltage identified and that measured. The HEV testing results show that the battery voltage predicted is in good agreement with that measured, the maximum difference is within 3.7%. Fixing the time constant to a numeric value, satisfactory results can still be achieved. After setting a battery discharge cut-off voltage, the instantaneous available power of the battery can be predicted.