One of the key battery performances which can be described as the resistance characteristic is the cell voltage response with dynamic currents, and it requires synchronous cell voltages and current. But due to inevitable network latency in modular battery management system (BMS) with controller area network (CAN), cell voltages and current are usually asynchronous. We firstly analyze the sampling and the storage process of battery signals to study the asynchronous mechanism in BMS. We develop an on-line synchronization method using a "global clock" from the master controller to decrease the time delay as much as possible. And we further propose a model based sync method based on the frequency division equivalent circuit model (FDECM) for the battery pack. The low frequency cell difference model is used to identify cell "resistances difference", and then the optimal time compensation for cell voltages is obtained when the minimum mean absolute derivative (MAD) value of identified resistance differences is reached according to the low frequency characteristic of cell "resistances difference". The proposed methods are verified by simulation and experiment. The current and cell voltages in the data logger of BMS can be synchronized when the optimal compensation time is applied respectively for each cell. The data after synchronization can meet the requirements of further data analysis and processing, which is of great significance to enhance and improve the control strategy of BMS. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.