Saturday, 20 December 2014

Limo Service In Chicago Using Tesla’s Model S EVs Is Booming

CleanTechnica.com: You may remember hearing pretty recently about a chauffeuring service using Tesla Model SEVs opening up in the city of Chicago — beginning operations just a couple of months ago, in October.

Well, apparently, that company — E-Motion Chauffeurs and Hires — has struck it big… to use a somewhat inappropriate expression (they do use EVs after all, not gas-powered vehicles).



Demand was actually so strong during the first week that the company’s servers crashed. Owing to ongoing success, the company recently placed an order for six more EVs from Tesla — this time the all-wheel drive Model S P85D, rather than the lower-speed standard Model S’s.

GAS2 provides more:

Company owner Abdullah Illahi is no stranger to the world of commerce. He is a successful commodity trader who knows that to break into a competitive market, you need an edge. Illahi figured using Teslas exclusively would give him the advantage he needed. “We are completely booked and I’ve been looking for other Tesla owners to try to cover some of our overflows,” Illahi told HybridCars.com in an interview. As part of his marketing strategy, his cars are the only ones in the world that are completely black inside and out.

In addition to the environmental considerations of using only zero emissions cars, Illahi expects maintenance costs for his fleet will be far lower than they would be for gasoline powered cars. He isn’t alone in his thinking either; Tesla Tours out of Portland takes customers on vineyard trips across the Oregon wine country, and in London the high-tech GLiiDE taxi service also uses the Model S exclusively.

Illahi is already now aiming to expand his company’s service area to another major American city — apparently either New York or Los Angeles. “We’ve gotten a lot of regulars from New York. They love Teslas and would love to see us take our business to Wall Street.”

To be honest, his marketing strategy seems to have worked on me, because I’m all of a sudden considering utilizing the company’s services next time that I’m in Chicago.