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In this paper, a soft switching DC–DC converter is presented for a hybrid energy storage system (HESS) in an electric vehicle (EV), using fixed boundary layer sliding mode control (FBLSMC) and variable switching frequency modulation. This strategy is aimed at improvement of the transient performance, energy transfer efficiency and system robustness for the HESS which is composed of a battery, an ultracapacitor (UC) and a bidirectional DC–DC converter. The state-space model of such DC–DC converter is firstly established involving all operating modes and system uncertainties. The FBLSMC scheme is proposed for the satisfactory voltage/current tracking despite system uncertainties. It can guarantee the system robustness and avoid the chattering existing in conventional sliding mode control (CSMC). In order to ensure the soft switching under transient load variations, a variable switching frequency modulation method is introduced into the controller. Finally, experimental results confirm that (1) within the full-load range the efficiency of the DC–DC converter with variable switching frequency is ∼96% in contrast to 90% efficiency at hard switching, and (2) the energy delivered by the UC follows the reference closely for EVs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]