Does the “For Lease” sign in front of 1901 E. Ellsworth mean that Mumbai-based Mahindra Group is giving up on its planned electric scooter, the GenZe (Up Front, January 2015)? Quite the contrary, says Mahindra spokesperson Yesim Erez.

Erez says the company is “currently in the final stages of the pre-production phase,” building small numbers of GenZes to test its systems. It’s currently using 36,000 square feet in the building, and by the end of the year, Erez says, it plans to pull up that “For Lease” sign by renting the remaining 19,000 square feet.

With that expansion the company will be able to build forty-eight vehicles a day or 12,000 a year. With a $100 deposit, the GenZe can be preordered online at an introductory price of $2,999. But there won’t be many people paying for their scooters from their earnings at Mahindra: Erez says the company should be able to hit its production target with just nine assembly technicians.