Methods for calculating electric losses in asynchronous and synchronous electric drives are presented, as well as electric drive control algorithms based on synchronous reluctance machines with switching of magnetic flux and excitation winding on the stator and asynchronous motors by the criterion of minimum losses are proposed. It is shown that minimal losses are possible with control modes BLDC-mode with two-phase switching windings (BLDC 2) and power windings from a three-phase current source (BLAC mode) according to the following indicators: average torque, ripple torque, the number of keys of the power converter. It is shown that the BLAC-control mode turned out to be the best in the nominal operating mode. The average torque value turned out to be 7% higher than in BLDC 2 mode, the maximum voltage value of the converter was 2 times lower, which allows you to select keys for a lower voltage, the maximum voltage increment value of the converter was 6 times lower, which reduces the requirements for speed control loop current drive. It is shown that in the overload mode, a control algorithm with sequential excitation is preferable, when the current in the excitation winding increases in proportion to the current in the power windings, which has significantly reduced electrical losses. In this case, the torque of the electric drive increases almost linearly, without visible restrictions on the overload capacity and, at a five-fold current overload, amounts to 4.3 nominal values.