In this paper, a method is presented, that supports the developer in the development of hybrid electrical vehicle drivetrains. The developer gets support in the early stage of product generation engineering, beginning with the definition of the system of objectives, via the automated synthesis and investigation of the drivetrain topologies, ending with a topology ranking, which is related to the system of objectives, and a similarity analysis. As the method is implemented in a tool, the results of the tool and its usability are investigated within two comprehensive descriptive studies.