Special section on advanced powertrains for more electric vehicles: Guest Editorial

The papers in this special section were presented at the IEEE Vehicle Power and Propulsion Conference (VPPC) that was held in Coimbra, Portugal, in October 2014. Advanced traction and propulsion systems are developing in order to ensure better energy performance, reduced operating cost, and higher lifetime of future transportation systems like road vehicles, as well as more electric trains, subways, ships, and airplanes. Such a powertrain integrates several complex subsystems (including power or energy sources, electric machines, power electronics,mechanical transmission), and it becomes mandatory to consider the whole system in order to reach the best performance.