The thermal management of a driving motor is related to the performance and economy of the vehicle. The lumped-parameter thermal network (LPTN) method can provide a model basis for motor temperature-rise control and effectively shorten the development cycle of motor thermal performance design. In this study, an 80 kw water-cooled permanent magnet synchronous motor was used and the accurate thermal model of a motor was built using the LPTN. On the basis of the accurate thermal model, the simplified thermal model of a motor was obtained by reducing the complexity of the model. The temperature-rise test of the end winding and magnetic steel of the motor was carried out under some working conditions. The test conditions were selected according to continuous external characteristics and operating characteristics of the motor. Compared with the experimental results, the temperature-rise error of the two thermal models was less than 5%. The temperature-rise error of the simplified thermal model was less than 3% compared with the accurate thermal model. Therefore, the simplified thermal model can be used to quickly predict the temperature rise of the motor.