The use of simulation packages is essential for software engineers to evaluate a specific control strategy or algorithm. This paper presents an energy management strategy development process of hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) to demonstrate the model-based development methodology. The control algorithms are modeled, simulated and optimized in the environment of Matlab/Simulink/Stateflow. A code generator, TargetLink, is used to transit the algorithm model to the embedded production ANSI C code. The generated C code is tested and modified in the hardware-in-the-loop simulation system (HIL) to ease the burden of heavy testing. The HEV energy management control strategy was developed with the model-based V-model development methodology, which guarantees the control precision and help to shorten the development time.