Living electric

It’s been a big couple of years for the Greentech Festival. Despite the advent of the pandemic, the event designed to champion people and ideas focused on new green technology, has been steadily growing and expanding across the globe.

Founded in Berlin in 2018 by Marco Voigt, Sven Krüger and former F1 champion, Nico Rosberg, the festival champions innovative ideas and technologies aimed at making the world a better, more ecologically sustainable place.

Last year the first Greentech Festival to be held outside of Germany took place in London and was a great success. This year New York was added to the growing number of international cities hosting the festival and tomorrow will see the opening of the first Greentech Festival in Asia Pacific when Singapore also hosts the event.

This has been one of the drivers for Marco Voigt who has sought to expand the Festival he co-founded since the very beginning. Its international adoption is something of a vindication and proof that the world is increasingly looking to greener technologies and ways of thinking in an attempt to improve the quality of life.

Very much practicing what he has for so long preached, Voigt has been an electric-car devotee for years. Initially he admits it was as much curiosity that attracted him, but his work with sustainability and green principles really made it an important step.

“On the one hand, I was curious and always found it exciting to see and experience what electromobility actually means,” says Voigt. “On the other hand, because we talk about sustainability all the time at Greentech Festival, I just wanted to gain experience with an electric car myself.”

Although attitudes are changing towards e-mobility all around the world, Voigt also admits to a feeling of being something of a pioneer and spreading the word about electric vehicles.

“I have actually been able to convince people around me to go for an electric car,” he says of his experiences to date. “Often it is only the convenience that prevents people from trying something new and sustainable.”

According to Voigt, he is living proof that an electric vehicle makes sense even if you regularly drive long distances. This year alone he has already covered more than 30,000 kilometres in his Audi e-tron Sportback, travelling throughout Europe from his Berlin base and totally immersing himself in the mind shift required to own and live with e-mobility on a daily basis.

 “I hang out at charging stations a lot,” says Voigt, on what has changed most in his lifestyle as a result. “That doesn’t bother me, it’s just part of it.” 

Having meetings, answering emails, listening to music, drinking coffee – he always puts his charging time to good use. Voigt has also long since ceased to worry about not finding a charging facility on long journeys given the rapid growth of charging infrastructure in Europe.

“The way the charging infrastructure on motorways has developed in recent years is amazing,” he says. 

But that’s not to say that it has been completely without incident. Once he recalls, he was stranded in a village with the battery of his car almost empty. 

“I saw an old lady standing in front of her house and asked her if I could use her socket,” Voigt recalls with a grin. “That was one of my funniest experiences with the e-tron.” He sat with the elderly lady in her garden and drank coffee while his car was charging. ‘

“There's always a socket somewhere,” he says.

Another attraction of EV ownership for Voigt is less practical and more personal  – but then that’s one of the most fundamental aspects of all vehicle ownership.

“My neighbours keep telling me my car sounds like a spaceship and that’s true. It’s not particularly noisy, but pretty cool.” 

“I sometimes lower the windows when I drive into the underground car park because I like to hear the noise myself. It sounds so futuristic.”