There has been an ever-increasing demand to increase the switching frequency, power density, efficiency and dynamic performance of switch-mode power converter, the development of soft-switching technology has taken an accelerated pace. This paper provides an review on the development of softswitching power converters for electric propulsion and recent research trends will also be discussed, with emphasis on soft-switching converters for dc motor drives, soft-switching inverters for ac motor drives and soft-switching converters for switched reluctance motor (SRM) drives.