The Vehicle Industry Is Moving Fast [Automotive Electronics]

After the successful 2019 edition in Hanoi, Vietnam
[1]
, the IEEE Vehicle Power and Propulsion Conference (VPPC) rotated to Europe and was held for the first time in Gijon, Spain, for the two last editions due to the COVID-19 pandemic
[2]
,
[3]
. The ticklish situation in the spring and summer of 2020 around the world forced it to move to a virtual conference. As the organization committee, led by Prof. Pablo Arboleya, set out an excellent program to receive the international attendees, the VPPC steering committee decided to give the opportunity to the Gijon organization to have an on-site conference giving them the organization of the next VPPC edition in 2021. This is an opportunity to keep appointments with the event center, catering, hotels, and so on. Unfortunately, the pandemic situation remains difficult during 2021 and the VPPC 2021 edition was also prepared as a remote event between 25 October and 14 November. A very motivated team from the University of Oviedo—Gijon campus organized the last two editions with the motto “Connect green e-motion worldwide in a complete network,” and the Technical Program Committee (Prof. G. Gruosso, Italy; Prof. R. de Castro, the United States; and Prof. J. Garcia, Spain) prepared a very attractive program, including outstanding keynote speakers, tutorial lectures, and the remote presentation of 303 papers (VPPC 2020—163 and VPPC 2021—140) from 29 countries (see
Figure 1
). VPPC 2020 and VPPC 2021 were the first VPPC virtual conferences in its history of 18 editions. VPPC continues to be the venue for researchers, educators, and engineers to share the latest results in research, teaching, and development of electric and hybrid vehicles and related technologies. It is an important forum where the academic and industrial community and policy makers discuss new technology trends and collaboration for mutual development in the important moment where new resolutions were taken by international leaders after 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference.