This paper critically evaluates efficiency of soft switching inverters including an actively clamped resonant dc link inverter and a clamped-mode resonant pole inverter. An analytical approach to evaluating efficiency of the clamped-mode soft switching inverter has been developed. The evaluation results are compared with that of the standard pulse-width-modulation (PWM) inverter. A 50-kW induction motor is used as the variable load, and the inverter efficiency is evaluated under different speed and torque conditions. The clamped-mode soft-switching inverter, although eliminating the switching loss, shows poor efficiency over the entire load range. Under low load conditions, the efficiency profile is even worse. The actively clamped resonant dc link inverter shows highest efficiency over the entire speed and torque range. However, its energy saving over the standard PWM inverter is marginal under full load or high speed conditions.