When Mike McQuary watched the documentary film "Who Killed the Electric Car," he flashed back to his days as president of the homegrown Internet company MindSpring.

The "oohs" and "aahs" of subjects who drove the cars in the film reminded him of the enthusiasm computer users showed when connected to the Internet for the first time.

RTEV (ENLARGE)

The tiny cars aren't meant for driving on Ga. 400 or I-85, but Mike McQuary contends some will do fine on short trips to the grocery store or high school soccer games.

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" 'It's my people again,' " McQuary says he said to himself.

Skip forward a year and a half to the Georgia Tech campus, where on Tuesday McQuary — now the CEO of a fledgling electric-car company called RTEV — showed off a small fleet of vehicles.

The tiny cars aren't meant for driving on Ga. 400 or I-85, but McQuary contends some will do fine on short trips to the grocery store or high school soccer games. The cars are powered by a sealed gel battery that he says requires no maintenance and can be recycled. The U.S. Department of Transportation has approved some of them for use on roads where the speed limit is 35 mph or less.

"We won't replace the gas-powered vehicle," said McQuary, who looked dressed for some errand-running himself in jeans and an olive-colored company T-shirt.

He knows there are challenges. For example, the battery RTEV currently uses to power the cars is rather pricey, but shifting to a lithium ion one causes other problems.

"Those things want to catch fire," he said.

But, with little end in sight to rising oil and gasoline prices, McQuary and others at Winnsboro, S.C.-based RTEV hope that within five years the electric car is more common than just the "quirky little vehicles that the tree-huggers have."

McQuary, 47, made his mark in the 1990s as president and chief operating officer of MindSpring, which merged with EarthLink, where he helped bring the Internet to the masses. Since he left the company in 2002, McQuary started a record label and co-founded Ellis, McQuary, Stanley and Associates, a merchant banking firm for startup companies.

He entered the electric-vehicle business after meeting Bo Huff, a South Carolina entrepreneur who came to Atlanta looking for investors in a venture to produce electric golf carts. McQuary asked whether Huff would be willing instead to help develop an electric car company.

The result was RTEV, whose Chinese-made vehicles can be broken into two categories:

The first is a group of golf cart look-alikes with names like "Hunter" and "Workman" for use on hunting trips and work sites. They are scheduled to hit dealers in 2009 and will be priced between $6,000 and $10,000.

The second is a set of mini and full-size cars called "Wheegos." McQuary says the most advanced of those will travel 60 mph and have a projected battery life of 100 miles.

Wheegos are due out in 2010 and will be sold for between $18,000 and $22,000.