The Japanese Hitachi Group plans to massively increase its presence in Germany in the coming years.
“The German rail network urgently needs more capacity, and we would like to help expand this capacity,” said Hitachi Rail CEO Giuseppe Marino to the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. To this end, the group is taking over the Ground Transportation Systems (GTS) division of Thales, which has 2,000 employees in Germany, on June 1st.
In addition to signaling technology and big data solutions for monitoring the condition of the infrastructure, Hitachi also wants to bring trains onto the German rails: the hybrid battery train EuroMasaccio by 2026 and later the high-speed train ETR 100, also known as Frecciarossa. “We have so far supplied it to Italy, Spain and France – and hopefully to Germany in 2028,” says Marino. This is primarily an attack on the Siemens Group, which has so far supplied Deutsche Bahn.
Hitachi is said to have already contacted the state-owned company. “Please understand that I cannot comment on this,” says Marino. “But I can say this much: the ETR 100 would really be a very, very good train for Germany.” According to Marino, there is “a lot” of the famous and punctual Japanese Shinkansen express train in the European counterpart. “We are bringing a piece of the Shinkansen to Europe,” he says.