Purpose The automotive industry extensively uses switched reluctance motors (SRM) because of their excellent performance. The main purpose of this article is to investigate the design of a particular type of SRM called doubly salient outer rotor switched reluctance motor (DSORSRM) for electric vehicle application in this paper. Design/methodology/approach Different configurations of DSORSRM motor such as long flux path SRM, reduced flux path mutually coupled SRM and short flux path SRM (SF-SRM) are considered for investigation. The best configuration based on average torque is selected for further investigation by conducting an electromagnetic analysis. Also, in the proposed design, laminating material with low iron loss and superior performance characteristics is selected by doing electromagnetic analysis for SRM with M19, M660-50D, M-19 and M800-100A non-oriented laminating core material. Because vibrations are produced in DSORSRM devices as a result of changing induction, a mechanical analysis was performed to estimate the natural frequencies of vibration and the amplitudes that may lead to acoustic noises. Findings SF-SRM configuration with three-phase, 12/10, 250 W, 48 V, 1,000 rpm is selected with the impact in the elimination of flux reversals and also has various salient features such as singly excited, no rotor windings, no permanent magnet, pure in construction and high starting torque. Still, this SRM suffers from vibration owing to changing induction. In lamination material selection, M19 is chosen as optimized material to obtain vibration reduction. Vibration analysis was performed for the optimized 12/10 SF-SRM with M19 lamination material, and the corresponding modes for the machine to operate with reduced vibration are analyzed. The current and speed characteristics of the prototype model for the DSORSRM motor are obtained and validated with finite element analysis (FEA) results. Originality/value The performed FEA result shows that the proposed DSORSRM with short flux path configuration produces a high average torque of 1.915 N m. The M19 lamination material gives a minimum iron loss of 9.056 W. The modal frequencies are estimated and validated with numerical equations.