Tanya Altmann is an experienced multinational manager with a passion for abstract painting. Within ŠKODA Transportation, she is Senior Vice President for Bus Mobility Solutions and CEO of Škoda Transportation Deutschland GmbH. Her focus is on wheeled vehicles with all types of propulsion — from electric, LNG and hydrogen to conventional diesel.
Škoda Transportation is well known as a producer of rolling stock vehicles, a field in which it is very successful. Why are you focusing your interest on the category of wheel vehicles in public transport?
In our subsidiary Škoda Electric in Pilsen, we already produce trolleybuses and electric buses. So far, we have produced more than 14,800 trolleybuses and electric buses. Right now, we are producing trolleybuses for many Czech and foreign cities. Also, the demand for electric buses is growing. We won a contract for fourteen new electric buses for the Prague Transportation Company. The capital will acquire a fleet of modern environmentally friendly vehicles that do not produce carbon dioxide emissions and thus contribute to cleaner air and a more harmonious environment in the city. And that is the main path that we want to follow. We have a long history with electric mobility. Our fi rst electric bus was produced in 2012. We also have a history with hydrogenpowered buses. The fi rst hydrogen bus with the Škoda logo was produced in 2008. At that time, the market was not yet ready for this solution. We can say that we were ahead of our time. We consider public transport in cities to be an inevitable development. Despite the onset of electromobility in individual passenger car transport, local emissions will fall, but traffi c problems will not be solved. As more and more people work in metropolises while those metropolitan areas grow, passenger car transportation will become more and more diffi cult. This can be solved in principle by public transport.
What does the Green Deal mean for your company, and what path do you see in the area of new bus tractions/
propulsions?
In general, this is a great opportunity and will also generate more business for us. Yes, there will be pressure on cities to odernise their fleets, reduce CO2 emission, reduce noise, and offer a good range of public passenger vehicles to reduce using individual transport. And this is what we support to make our world a better place. We, at Skoda Transportation, have proven solutions, and can be considered a partner who will serve, consult and provide help with our expertise and knowledge in green mobility.
You are a woman in the position of top manager ofa big European company. How do you manage to combine work duties and relaxation? Do you like sports or culture?
I love my work and enjoy working with a multinational and multicultural team across Europe. I get excited by their skills and expertise in this area. Nevertheless, I enjoy quality time outside of work with my family and friends. They can bring me back to earth in seconds. I do abstract painting in my free time and recently wrote a novel, which is being proofread. I am an inquisitive person and love to learn. This is why I love to listen to podcasts if I am travelling. I like to learn about future trends, R&D news, economics, as well as history.
Thank you for the interview.
