•Optimal understeer characteristics for energy consumption reduction.•Set of rules for energy-efficient electric vehicle operation.•Novel feedforward-feedback torque-vectoring control algorithm. In electric vehicles with multiple motors, the individual wheel torque control, i.e., the so-called torque-vectoring, significantly enhances the cornering response and active safety. Torque-vectoring can also increase energy efficiency, through the appropriate design of the reference understeer characteristic and the calculation of the wheel torque distribution providing the desired total wheel torque and direct yaw moment. To meet the industrial requirements for real vehicle implementation, the energy-efficiency benefits of torque-vectoring should be achieved via controllers characterised by predictable behaviour, ease of tuning and low computational requirements. This paper discusses a novel energy-efficient torque-vectoring algorithm for an electric vehicle with in-wheel motors, which is based on a set of rules deriving from the combined consideration of: i) the experimentally measured electric powertrain efficiency maps; ii) a set of optimisation results from a non-linear quasi-static vehicle model, including the computation of tyre slip power losses; and iii) drivability requirements for comfortable and safe cornering response. With respect to the same electric vehicle with even wheel torque distribution, the simulation results, based on an experimentally validated vehicle dynamics simulation model, show: a) up to 4% power consumption reduction during straight line operation at constant speed; b) >5% average input power saving in steady-state cornering at lateral accelerations >3.5 m/s2; and c) effective compensation of the yaw rate and sideslip angle oscillations during extreme transient tests.