According to the coexcitation of rareearth and nonrareearth permanent magnets, a lessrareearth permanent magnet brushless motor with hybrid permanent magnets was proposed. Details of the topology and operation principle of the proposed motor were introduced. Then, based on the electromagnetic formula and excitation sources equivalence method, the initial design method and the corresponding design parameters of the motor were determined. And, the electromagnetic performances under the conditions of noload and rated load were investigated by the finite element analysis. The corresponding experiments of the 5 kW prototype were conducted. Both theoretical analysis and experimental results verified the effectiveness of the proposed motor and the optimization design method.