Herbert Diess could not be less like Elon Musk. The Volkswagen boss is a wiry Bavarian who does not take drugs, rant on Twitter, or blast cars into orbit. But he knows he needs to copy the Tesla founder if he is to beat him in the race to dominate the nascent $1 trillion electric vehicle market. That means not only creating better EVs than his billionaire rival, but making more noise about them.
Which is why, on Wednesday, he flew 1,200 miles from Germany to the Greek island of Astypalaia to unveil what he says is the world’s first (nearly) carbon-neutral island. VW is investing in a €10 million (£8.6 million) project to provide subsidised electric vehicles, powered by solar and wind-generated electricity, for