The emissions-cheating scandal that has cost Volkswagen AG more than $20bn has also made it harder to import its cars to the U.S.

In the fall of 2015, after all his grapes had been grown, picked, and bled into big oak barrels, Mark Tarlov started doing math. Like any good vintner, he tallied his costs - for labor, equipment, even packaging - and broke it all down by the bottle. Finally, he calculated a price, with a 45 percent profit margin, and set about building a website he'd use to sell it.

Solar power is now cheaper than coal in some parts of the world. In less than a decade, it's likely to be the lowest-cost option almost everywhere.

On the surface, the European airline industry doesn't look much changed from 20 years ago: National flag carriers such as Air France, British Airways, Iberia, KLM and Lufthansa dominate a handful of giant hub airports. Dig a bit deeper, and you'll see that the market has shifted in a big way. Over the past decade or so, 10 legacy airlines across the region have combined into three huge groups, a consolidation that makes the market look a lot like the U.S.