New energy vehicles are the mainstream development direction of replacing traditional fuel vehicles, and vigorously developing new energy vehicles is conducive to ensuring energy security and realizing the dual-carbon goal. The drive motor is the core component of the new energy vehicle, and the design of the drive motor directly determines the power performance of the new energy vehicle. In this paper, a 10.2 kW permanent magnet synchronous motor for small vehicles is designed by studying and analyzing the permanent magnet synchronous motor for small vehicles and referring to the relevant research data. The simulation results show that the model meets the design expectation and the parameters are set reasonably. At the same time, the winding AC loss, air gap flux density, average torque and torque pulsation of the motor are compared in different magnetic steel thickness, magnetic steel width and magnetic steel V angle. These works provide many references for the design of permanent magnet synchronous motor for new energy vehicles.