“Mána, look here,” cried young Sofia as she displayed her brand-new electric scooter to her fawning parents.

“Atta girl,” cooed Nikolaus, “you have joined the eco-gang, haven’t you?”

“Girl, do you realize that you are one of the first in this small Greek town to own an electric scooter?” said an equally proud Maria.

“Yes! Yes! Yes! No air pollution. No noise. No carbon emissions”

At 10 AM on that sunny Sunday, had you been there in a street that adjoined the main market of that small, trendy Greek town, you would have witnessed a happy family rejoicing about a little but proud thing. It was one thing to keep reading about eclectic scooters in big cities in all those fancy Greek magazines, but quite another to actually own one!

The three of them had just about completed their inspection of the shiny, marvellous-looking machine and were about to go back in, when a strong, rushing sound made them turn back.

There was the brash son of the house, Christos, in his flashy new sports car, a car that he boasted had everything that a car making a statement should have – its speed of course, but along with it the massive noise and the big, proud gust of dust and smoke it spewed in its tail. A recent auto magazine had rated it as the sexiest-looking but the least fuel-efficient sports car launched in the previous five years.