Safety issues raised from a lithium-ion battery during operation can be attributed to the variation of its temperature, which is, in turn, associated with the uncertainties in the parameters such as material properties and operating conditions. In this study, a Monte Carlo simulation of a mechanistic lithium-ion battery model is conducted to capture the probabilistic nature of uncertainties in the parameters and their relative importance to the temperature of a lithium-ion battery cell. Sensitivity analysis is statistically performed, and the varied parameters are ranked according to their contributions to the variation of the battery temperature. Statistical analysis is also conducted on the distribution of the temperature and deviation from its normality has been identified. These analyses can provide valuable information for manufactures in the area of resource partitioning for quality and safety control. Copyright (c) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.