In this paper, a dead-beat direct torque and flux control with a novel sliding-mode stator flux observer is proposed for electric vehicle (EV) drives. Compared to the direct torque control, the proposed scheme exhibits both static and dynamic performances. Since the system parameters have impact on the control effect of the permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) deadbeat-direct torque control (DB-DTC) system, an observer combining the flux current model and voltage model is proposed. The simulation results verify that the proposed scheme can improve both observation performance and robustness.