The invention discloses an electric vehicle lithium battery residual charge estimation method and apparatus. The method includes the following steps: by establishing an equivalent circuit model of a lithium battery, on the basis of the model, obtaining a method for computing an output voltage Uo and an open-circuit Uocv, carrying out model identification, computing the open-circuit voltage by using a parameter value that is obtained from the identification, real-time measuring the temperature through a temperature sensor, comparing the real-time open-circuit voltage with a Uocv-SOC curve corresponding to the temperature that is measured accordingly, obtaining a corresponding residual charge value, and correcting the open-circuit voltage so as to obtain a more accurate Uocv-SOC curve. According to the invention, the method has the following beneficial advantages: 1. addressing the defect of the method for estimating residual charge of a lithium battery by the open-circuit voltage, being capable of real-time pre-estimating the residual charge; 2. establishing the equivalent circuit model, being capable of real-time estimating the open-circuit voltage; 3. realizing the method for real-time estimating the residual charge of the lithium battery of an electric motor; and 4. being capable of real-time measuring the residual charge of the lithium battery at different temperature environments.