A high performance hysteresis current control of a permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drive is developed in this paper. The core advantage of field orientation control (FOC) is utilized to separate the flux and torque control components of the stator current of the PMSM. Specifically, the objectives of this work are to develop and utilize the HCC algorithm for FOC of a complete closed-loop speed-controlled PMSM drive system, optimize the control algorithm to obtain fast speed response while maintaining effective current and torque tracking, and examine the hysteresis current control action clearly showing the inverter switching and the effects of hysteresis band selection. Being a speed-controlled system, the suitability of the developed model with constant, step, and ramp reference speed inputs is examined. The results obtained show that the developed model and algorithm based on hysteresis current control offer effective current and torque in all scenarios tested.