To improve the differential performance and lateral stability of distributed drive electric vehicles, this paper proposes an electronic differential control strategy for rear-wheel independent drive electric vehicles based on target torque secondary distribution. Firstly, according to the ideal motion states of the vehicle, the linear quadratic regulator (LQR) is used to calculate the additional required yaw moment, then, the orthogonal experimental method is applied to optimize the LQR parameters, and the target torque is allocated for the first time. Secondly, the target torque is redistributed by designing the functional relationship between the wheel sliding rate and the torque correction coefficient. Finally, the dynamics characteristics of the distributed electric vehicle with electronic differential control is simulated and analyzed in comparison with the traditional mechanical differential. The results show that the proposed electronic differential control strategy can not only achieve differential control well, but also the side slip angle and the yaw angle are reduced by up to 36.3% and 88.8% respectively, compared with the traditional vehicle. The proposed electronic differential control strategy ensures that the wheel sliding rate is always in the optimal sliding rate range, and greatly improves the vehicle lateral stability.