Abstract: Energy management strategy was studied for intelligent hybrid electric vehicle during adaptive cruise. A particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm based nonlinear model predictive control (MPC) was proposed. Combining the advantage of MPC in solving multi-object and multi-restriction optimization problem with the characteristic of PSO in small operand and high efficiency, the PSO was taken as the roll optimization method to form a PSO based MPC algorithm. Simulation results show that, the algorithm can make most car operation focus in low fuel consumption and can speed up the calculation process.