The scene

ELECTRIC COMPANY On a little boom box, a mix-CD of automobile-centric songs revved up the couple of dozen I-GO members who trickled into the early-evening party: Gary Numan’s “Cars,” Prince’s “Little Red Corvette,” Wilson Pickett’s version of “Mustang Sally.” Billy Ocean was pleading with listeners to get outta his dreams and into his car as I-GO CEO Sharon Feigon mingled, telling devotees of the 15,000-member nonprofit car-sharing company about i-MiEV, Mitsubishi’s new electric vehicle. I-GO is using a $700,000 U.S. Department of Energy grant to bolster its fleet of 220 vehicles with 30 electric cars by 2011, and the i-MiEV is one of three vehicles under consideration. (Currently, half the company’s stock is hybrids and two are plug-in hybrid conversions.) In the back alley of Wicker Park’s Center for Neighborhood Technology, I-GO’s HQ, members were test-driving the car, which looks like a first-generation iPod made love to a Smart car. “I drove it on Lake Shore Drive today. It’s cute and has a lot of pickup,” Feigon said. “The strange part is you turn the key and it’s like, ‘Is it on?’ It’s so completely silent!”

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