Electric vehicles (EVs) are potential options for conserving fossil fuels and reducing pollution for a safe environment and sustainable transportation. However, energy efficiency and utilization are the major issues with electric vehicles. Permanent magnet synchronous motor(PMSM) drives have better efficiency than other electric drives, even if the control system is complex. Thus, control complexity, energy efficiency, and better dynamic performance features of the PMSM drive for electric vehicle applications can be achieved by using appropriate control techniques. In this regard, nonlinear proportional, integral, and derivative (NPID) speed control of PMSM for the propulsion of electric vehicles is implemented for this work. To achieve the proposed system, vehicle dynamics and the mathematical model of PMSM in the direct and quadrature axes are done mathematically. For analysis purpose the designed system were simulated with MATLAB 2020a software tool.The designed NPID speed controller for PMSM is simulated and performance evaluation is done by considering different scenarios. Accordingly, GA-NPID speed controller has a rise time of 0.0066 sec , settling time of 0.0138 sec, 0.0022% of maximum overshoot and 0.0042% of steady-state error under constant load torque of 3 Nm and 178 rad/sec rated speed.The dynamic performance of the designed NPID speed controller is not affected by set point changes. However, steady-state error and overshoot are a little bit affected when system parameters vary and a sudden load is applied to the system. In addition, for comparison purposes, GA-PI, GA-PID, and GA-NPID speed controllers are simulated by considering different scenarios. The simulation result demonstrated that the proposed NPID controller shows better performance in the aspects of settling time, overshoot, and steady-state error compared with the GA-PI and GA-PID controllers. KeyWords: Electric motor, Electric Vehicle (EV),Genetic algorithm,Non-linear Proportional Integral Derivative, Permanent magnet synchronous motor ,Vector control