For charging a rechargeable hybrid battery pack, a first cell stack coupled in parallel with a second cell stack of the hybrid battery pack are pre-charged in parallel. The cell stack to first complete the pre-charge phase, is selected to receive a normal charge with a constant current while the non-selected one of the cell stack continues to receive the pre-charge. The first cell stack and the second cell stack receive the normal charge in the selected sequence. Upon completion of the normal charge for each cell of the hybrid battery pack, the first cell stack and the second cell stack are trickle-charged in parallel to complete the charging.