Improvement of traction performance and off-road mobility for a vehicle with four individual electric motors: Driving over icy road

•A traction control system for electric vehicle with in-wheel motors is introduced.•SMC and PID control are efficient for wheel slip control in traction mode.•An extremum-seeking algorithm is developed for robust estimation of reference slip.•The traction control reduces acceleration time for icy surface conditions.•Traction and speed control ensure near-constant low velocity tracking.