Vehicle power battery pack is a complex system with the characteristics of multi-field variable, multi-dimensional, multi-scale, multi-level, multi-subsystem, multi-functional requirements and changeable working environment. According to the complex system characteristics of vehicle power battery pack, this paper puts forward the idea that the essence of vehicle power battery pack thermal runaway protection is to control the emergence and transmission process of its thermal runaway risk. Combined with the thermal runaway causes and their correlation, a thermal runaway cause network model is established, and a thermal runaway protection scheme based on cognitive-restrict model of complex system is proposed, which can effectively guide the structural safety design and optimization of vehicle power battery pack.