"We have solved the problem of fast charging for electric cars," said Ulrich Spiesshofer, the global head of power and automation bellwether ABB Group.

The company launched a fast charging station in Hanover, Germany, in the presence of chancellor Angela Merkel that can charge a car for travelling 200 kilometres in eight minutes.

With this bold assertion, Spiesshofer expressed confidence in electric vehicles as the next revolution in personal transport.

He dismissed talk of uncertainty on account of policy flip flops by the Indian government on the electric vehicles, to argue that India is at the beginning of an s-curve, and that he is confident of fast uptick in sales in the next few years.

In 2016, India saw sales of 16,000 electric vehicles (EV). This number grew to 22,000 in 2017, but of this number, the number of electric cars was only 2000.

With power charging issues resolved, India finds itself in a bright spot to take the electric vehicle leap with a number of electric cars expected to be launched, said Spiesshofer .

Spiesshofer was equally bullish on projects such as the bullet train – one of prime minister Modi’s flagship projects.

He admitted that a project such as this will hold huge opportunities and admitted that the Swedish-Swiss multinational has expressed interest and is keenly watching the developments.

He spoke of how collaborations with Germany’s high performance trains such as ICE 2, have helped build capabilities that they would be keen on sharing with India.

Speaking on the issue of Make In India, Ulrich explained that ABB had been one of the biggest partners of the govt in Making in India.

Rating the govt high, for the initiative, Ulrich did also maintain that the for the momentum to continue it was critical for govt to press for reforms in areas of power, infrastructure and education.

Speaking of reforms in the power sector, Ulrich stopped short of suggesting a switch to privatizing the power utilities. But referring to private utilities in cities of Mumbai and Delhi, he argued for shifting to a business model that would allow for greater efficiencies by greater investments and superior technology.

First Published:Jun 2, 2018 7:04 PM IST