ABSTRACT The energy management strategy (EMS) of hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) is the key to optimize the energy conversion performance of the whole vehicle power system. The performance of EMS could be affected by vehicle parameters such as vehicle speed, battery state of charge (SOC) and the environmental parameters including the current following state jointly. Combining the following state of the vehicle with EMS can be beneficial to improve the road performance of HEV. In this paper, a multi-objective optimization framework for safe following, comfort and fuel economy of HEV is established based on model predictive control (MPC) under both urban and high-speed conditions, and the kinematic parameter of the preceding vehicle was predicted on the basis of third-order Markov model. Simulation tests including urban and high-speed working condition are carried out respectively and results show that the following vehicle maintains expected following safety and comfort. Meanwhile, compared to the typical rule-based strategy and equivalent consumption minimum strategy (ECMS), the fuel economy has also been increased by 29.8% and 9.2% in UDDS working condition, 25.2% and 6.1% in WLTC working condition, respectively.