This paper presents an energy-saving controller for automotive air-conditioning/refrigeration (A/C-R) systems. With their extensive application in homes, industry, and vehicles, A/C-R systems are consuming considerable amounts of energy. The proposed controller consists of two different time-scale layers. The outer or the slow time-scale layer called a set-point optimizer is used to find the set points related to energy efficiency by using the steady state model; whereas, the inner or the fast time-scale layer is used to track the obtained set points. In the inner loop, thanks to its robustness, a sliding mode controller (SMC) is utilized to track the set point of the cargo temperature. The currently used on/off controller is presented and employed as a basis for comparison to the proposed controller. More importantly, the real experimental results under several disturbed scenarios are analysed to demonstrate how the proposed controller can improve performance while reducing the energy consumption by 9% comparing with the on/off controller. The controller is suitable for any type of A/C-R system even though it is applied to an automotive A/C-R system in this paper. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.