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The second Steve Dumke spots a gap in the traffic on the road from Eggersdorf to Strausberg, his white Hyundai Ioniq lurches forward and nestles between two fast-moving Volkswagens in the right-hand lane. A tap on the accelerator and the gap is mine," he howls with glee.

Dumke, a 37-year-old former chef, is less a speed freak than, in his own words, a vehicle eroticist". I love cars with curves and the growl of an eight-cylinder piston engine," he says. But for the last four years the vehicular object of his desires has run on megawatts rather than litres.