The predictive torque control (PTC) scheme for four-level open-end winding permanent magnet synchronous motor drive (OEW-PMSM) is introduced in this article, owing to its simple and intuitive algorithm. However, the classical PTC-PMSM drive performance mainly depends on the weighting factors (WF) used in cost function (CF) and its selection is a cumbersome process. Hence, a new approach for eliminating these WFs is proposed for four-level PTC-OEW-PMSM drive without dropping its benefits in classical PTC method. The torque and flux objective errors are considered as two individual CFs and evaluated with all available voltage vectors (VVs). Then, the set of VVs corresponding to the ascending orders of CFs magnitudes is considered as separate VVs groups. The common VV present in both these VV groups represents the minimised torque error, flux error and treated as the optimal VV for the next control period. As a result, the monotonous flux WF tuning is no more required. The limited VVs strategy is also proposed for reducing the computational burden of PTC. The proposed four-level PTC method is initially tested in MATLAB/ SIMULINK and experimentally verified on PMSM drive. K E Y W O R D S four-level voltage source inverter and weighting factors, open-end winding, permanent magnet synchronous motor drive drive, predictive torque control 1 | INTRODUCTION Nowadays, studies on electric vehicles (EVs) are gaining extended attention in vehicular applications because of environmental and energy issues. 1,2 Due to the features of high power density and torque per weight ratio, good efficiency and simple structure, permanent magnet synchronous motor drive (PMSM) are popularly used in EVs. 3-5 Large electric and hybrid EV applications, like military vehicle and trucks, demand high power and which is achieved through the multi-level inverters (MLIs). The MLIs provide increased voltage levels on the output side and make better harmonic