For a series plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, higher working efficiency can be achieved by the drive system with two small motors in parallel than that with one big motor alone. However, the overly complex structure will inevitably lead to a substantial increase in the development cost. To improve the system price-performance ratio, a new kind of series-parallel hybrid system evolved from the series plug-in hybrid system is designed. According to the technical parameters of the selected components, the system model is established, and the vehicle dynamic property and pure electric drive economy are evaluated. Based on the dynamic programming, the energy management strategy for the drive system under the city driving cycle is developed, and the superiority validation of the system is completed. For the studied vehicle driven by the designed series-parallel plug-in hybrid system, compared with the one driven by the described series plug-in hybrid system, the dynamic property is significantly improved because of the multi-power coupling, and the fuel consumption is reduced by 11.4% with 10 city driving cycles. In a word, with the flexible configuration of the designed hybrid system and the optimized control strategy of the energy management, the vehicle performance can be obviously improved.