Abstract State of charge (SOC) can represent the remaining battery capacity, and accurately estimating SOC is very useful for the drivers of electric vehicles. This study proposes a lithium battery SOC estimation technique based on multi-timescale forgetting factor recursive least squares as well as an unscented Kalman filter (MTS-FFRLS-UKF). The MTS-FFRLS-UKF uses a circuit with a 2-RC network as the battery model, whose parameters are continuously updated at a timescale that is different from SOC estimation. The experimental results under a dynamic test prove the availability and accuracy of MTS-FFRLS-UKF. Continuous parameter update enhances the accuracy of battery modelling and furthermore the SOC estimation accuracy. The mean absolute error (MAE) and root-mean square error (RMSE) of SOC estimation decrease to 0.58% and 0.62%, respectively.