Battery life prediction is one of the critical issues that restrict the development of electric vehicles. Among the typical battery life models, the mechanism model focusing on the internal physical or electrochemical processes has a stronger theoretical foundation and greater accuracy. The empirical formula, which relies on the simplified mechanism, has a concise model structure and more flexibility in vehicle applications. However, the internal aging mechanism rarely correlates with the external operating characteristics. Based on the summary of the capacity fading mechanism and the reasoning of the internal kinetics of side reactions during the aging process, a lifetime model of the lithium-ion battery is established in this paper. The solutions to the vital parameters based on the external accelerated life testing results are also presented. The testing sample is a manganese oxide lithium-ion battery of 8 Ah. The validation results indicated that the life model established in this paper can describe the capacity fading law of the lithium-ion battery and the operability and accuracy for vehicle applications.