by Charlie Vick for The Northside Neighbor

Mike McQuary wants to resurrect the all-electric automobile. The Buckhead resident and former founder of Internet service provider MindSpring is now the CEO of RTEV, a Midtown-based company dedicated to designing and producing electric vehicles.

For now, the company has a range of vehicles which largely resemble golf carts, but McQuary said the company’s focus is presenting a number of vehicles, culminating in a full-sized electric car by 2010 which tops out at 60 mph and has a range of about 100 miles per charge.

The car won’t replace the need for a regular automobile, but McQuary indicated the car would be a supplement for the American driver. One could keep a regular car for trips and use an electric vehicle for errands and driving around town.

The CEO said the idea came from watching the documentary, “Who Killed the Electric Car?” What struck him was the number of people who said they loved their electric vehicles (EVs).

“What people use the word ‘love’ for their car? I have a hard time saying that about my kids sometimes,” McQuary said as the audience laughed.

Concept cars were unveiled at Georgia Tech May 6. RTEV had taken micro-compact cars, popular in Asian markets, and stripped out the gas combustion engines, adding in electric motors and batteries.

Though the vehicles won’t win a drag race, McQuary said he’d used a compact electric van to take his children to school for the last six months.

“This isn’t going to be an oddity,” McQuary said. “This is going to be something lots and lots of people drive.”

RTEV’s battery units are maintenance free and environmentally safe, according to McQuary. They use a lithium iron phosphate gel, rather than traditional wet batteries and less prone to overheating than lithium ion batteries. The CEO said RTEV batteries are safe enough to mail through the U.S. Postal Service.

McQuary said he hoped the company’s concept cars would be a glimpse of the future – the idea is to have a different engine and eco-friendly fuel, but the same experience driving around town, making tomorrow both novel and familiar.