Alstom`s focus on hydrogen trains |
French major Alstom is ready with its first `Made in India` electric locomotive from the Madhepura plant. In an interview with TOI, Alstom chairman and CEO Henri Poupart-Lafarge discusses the company`s strategy in India, including plans to bring electric buses and hydrogen. The company`s focus is to add new technologies, and engineering capabilities in India. In the last 10 years, we havethe company has reached a stage where everything that`s needed is done in India — it has a factory in Coimbatore, for metros in Chennai and now one for locomotives in Madhepura. It will add manufacturing capabilities. Engineering is growing 20-25% every year. Now, they have 1,500 engineers in Bangalore, which is more than 20% of all engineers in Alstom. Manufacturing capability for India and global operations is 50:50. On engineering, it is 80:20. Electrification is the future — whether we talk about electrification using catenaries, or the introduction of hydrogen trains, which is a terrific product to get rid of diesel. It has been worked out in Germany and a lot of countries have tested it out, including Canada. The cost of this train is similar to a cost of a normal train. But then, there is a cost of infrastructure which is difficult to estimate. There is need to have hydrogen tanks on the poles, etc.
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