The electric high-speed centrifugal compressor is the mainstream air compressor in present fuel cell vehicles. Surge strongly limits the stable operating range of centrifugal compressors. Therefore, it is of tremendous significance to study transient vibro-acoustic characteristics of the compressor surge evolution and early warnings of compressor surge. In this paper, comprehensive vibro-acoustic experiments of the compressor surge evolution are first conducted, and time-varying frequency characteristics are visualized through the short-time Fourier transform. The results show that the increase and fluctuation of the total sound pressure level at deep surge are mainly caused by the pressure pulsation at the centrifugal compressor outlet. Moreover, a rotating stall onset criterion based on acoustic signals is proposed, and the occurrence of severe rotating stall can be predicted by the precursor about 1.5–3 s in advance. Then, a mathematical model of the centrifugal compressor surge is established considering the variation of sound speed and introducing an additional volume, which unifies centrifugal compressor surge models at different compressor speeds. The maximum prediction error of the surge frequency is 1.95%. The model eliminates the pain point of the traditional Moore-Greitzer model which fails to predict the compressor surge characteristics at variable compressor speeds accurately. Finally, the impact of compression system dimensions on centrifugal compressor surge characteristics is quantitatively analyzed, and corresponding verification experiments are conducted. The proposed surge model can be used not only for quantifying the dynamic characteristics of compressor surge at transient speeds but also for designing active surge control strategies for variable vehicle operating conditions.