The rotary electric machine includes an armature core constituting a stator having an armature coil for charging a vehicle battery with its output voltage; rotor cores disposed inside the armature core with a predetermined gap therebetween and made up of magnetic pole parts formed as claw poles so that adjacent magnetic poles are different and cylindrical parts carrying a field coil; and permanent magnets provided in the magnetic circuit of the rotor cores for supplying magnetic flux along with the field coil to the armature core. The magnetizing force of the permanent magnets with respect to the armature core is set so that at a predetermined speed the output voltage of the armature coil immediately after a field current passed through the field coil is returned to zero from the maximum magnetizing force exerted by the field current does not exceed the charging voltage of the battery.