This article proposed a strong robust observer of distributed drive electric vehicle states, including yaw rate, sideslip angle, and longitudinal velocity. Based on strong tracking filter algorithm framework, the proposed observer realized a strong tracking-iterative central difference Kalman filter by introducing a time-varying fade factor into iterative central difference Kalman filter. The introducing of time-varying fade factor assigns approximate orthogonality to residual error, which improves robustness of the observer at mutation conditions. Calculation efficiency and accuracy are improved by applying central difference transformation to approach posterior mean and posterior co-variance. By correcting variance and covariance with combination of states updating and Gauss-Newton iteration, the observer also achieves high estimation accuracy and convergence rate. Finally, the observer was simulated in vehicle dynamics simulator veDYNA at slalom test and double lane change test with high and low road friction coefficients, respectively. Simulation results have verified that the observer has higher estimation accuracy as well as robustness comparing to extended Kalman filter.