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Tesla To Electrify Chicago

Electric supercars seem to be all the rage, or so we're led to believe with the unveiling of crazy-fast ones like Hybrid Technologies' 2007 L1X-75 and Commuter Cars Corporation's "Tango." Not to be outdone, Tesla Motors and the $93,000 electric sports car it's selling are taking their act to The Windy City, where the Silicon Valley startup is shopping around for 8,000-10,000 square feet of space in the River North, Gold Coast and Streeterville neighborhoods -- close to luxury retail that attracts the kind of customers Tesla is looking for, according to Phil Baugh, a vice-president with Baum Realty Group and the brokerage professional helping Tesla out with its search.

The roadster, which is made in a Lotus factory in England, can heat up the track with the best of them, clocking in at just 4 seconds going 0-60 and hitting at least 130 mph. Better yet, the distance between charges is as much as 200 miles -- quite a cut above most electric car ranges.

So far, the company boasts that 400 orders have been placed with deposits of $30,000, putting them well within range of the 800 to 1,000 vehicles the company expects to sell by October, when customers can take delivery.

This news comes as we're also getting details on the new partnership between Lotus Engineering and the electric car maker ZAP, presumably to produce a new crossover sport utility vehicle based on Lotus Engineering's APX aluminum chassis technology.

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Tags: alternative fuel, AlternativeFuel, electric cars, ElectricCars, green, lithium-ion, tesla