An AC permanent magnet switched reluctance motor, comprising a stator and a rotor; the stator comprises multiple excitation salient pole pairs, which are fixed on a stator seat at equal intervals; each excitation salient pole pair comprises a C-SHAPED laminated iron core and one or two excitation coils; the one or two excitation coils are wound around the C-SHAPED laminated iron core; all excitation salient pole pairs are mutually magnetically isolated, and each excitation salient pole pair is independently excited and controlled by its one or two excitation coils; wherein, the pole faces of the two salient poles of the C-SHAPED laminated iron core are opposite, said rotor comprises a rotating shaft, a rotor support and multiple permanent magnets; the center of the rotor support is fixed to the rotating shaft, said multiple permanent magnets are fixed at the outer edge of the rotor support at equal intervals, and the magnetic polarity of neighboring permanent magnets on a same rotating surface is different, when the rotating shaft rotates, the magnet pole faces of the multiple permanent magnets on the rotor support align with the pole faces of each excitation salient pole pair on the stator one by one; characterized in that each excitation salient pole pair further comprises one or two permanent magnet assemblies or permanent magnets; the two magnetic pole faces of each of the one or two permanent magnet assemblies closely cling to the laminated section of the laminated iron core; each of said permanent magnets of the excitation salient pole pairs is embedded into a gap of the laminated iron core (11; 151), the two magnetic pole faces of each permanent magnet cling closely to the laminated section of the gap of the laminated iron core; a gap exists between the lateral side of each permanent magnet and the laminated iron core; the winding direction of the one or two excitation coils is configured such that, when an excitation current is input into the one or two excitation coils to generate an excitation flux (ΦE), but the excitation flux is not strong enough to force a closed permanent magnet flux loop of the attached permanent magnet assemblies or the permanent magnets to open, the direction of the excitation flux (ΦE) generated through the laminated iron core is opposite to the direction of the permanent magnet flux (ΦP) of the attached permanent magnet assemblies or the permanent magnets; when sufficiently strong excitation current is input into the one or two excitation coils, such that the excitation flux (ΦE) is strong enough to force the closed permanent magnet flux loop to open, and to make the permanent magnet flux (ΦP) imported into the main loop of excitation flux (ΦE) which direction is now consistent with the direction of the permanent magnet flux (ΦP), thus forming compound excitation magnetic potentials on the pole faces of the laminated iron core; during alignment of the magnet pole faces of the multiple permanent magnets on the rotor support with the pole faces of each excitation salient pole pair, the compound excitation magnetic potentials on the pole faces of the excitation salient pole pair are configured to form the shortest closed magnetic loop with the permanent magnets of the rotor through an air gap.