The short circuit of lithium-ion batteries induced by mechanical abuse is a great concern in electric vehicle design. It remains a challenge to fully understand the nature of the mechanical damage process with the aim of improving battery crash safety. The present paper investigates the evolution of the damage process for a lithium-ion pouch cell under indentation by loading the cell to various force levels. A significant inflection point on the force-indentation curve is observed before the force peak. Postmortem examinations indicate that the characteristic change in the local slope of the curve is related to the change occurring at the local interfaces, including three phenomena - formation of tight adhesion on the anode-separator interfaces, delamination in the separators and decoating of graphite particles from the anodes. Analysis of the fracture sequence at the onset of short circuit clearly shows that the number of short-circuited electrode pairs is equal to the number of anode layers adhered with delaminated separator material before fracture occurs. The experimental study in the present paper implies that the inflection point on the force-indentation curve may be an indicator of damage initiation inside pouch cells under indentation. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.