MONROE - Ruda Chevrolet got the new all-electric Volt out on the lot in December or January, remembers Wayne Thoman.

Since then, he says the dealership has sold just one - to his cousin, who uses the Volt in the daily operations of his business, the AmericInn Lodge and Suites on 4th Avenue.

"We've had lots of people express interest," said Thoman, who works in sales at Ruda. Shoppers blanch at the list price of $42,000 and when they hear the car needs charging about every 35 miles.

But Americans commute a daily average of less than 30 miles roundtrip, according to data from the U.S. Department of Transportation. And the Volt costs just pennies to the mile to run. Also, Thoman said, buyers may be eligible for a $7,500 tax credit.

Volt's attraction for car buyers gets stronger the higher gas prices get. This week, gas costs between $3.34 and $3.43 per gallon in Monroe. Every time it creeps closer to $4, Thoman gets more questions about the Volt.

"If we ever hit that $5 mark, I don't expect these to stick around (on the lot)," Thoman said. "Each time we hit a new high-water mark, that's when people come out of the woodwork."

In the meantime, several electric-car enthusiasts in the area are making their own from scratch, refurbishing old ones or exploring (smaller) new vehicles. After all, electric cars have been around since Baker Electrics made the Suburban Runabout in the early 1900s and sold Thomas Edison his first car.

This Saturday, the sustainability organization Transition Green County is hosting a "Speed Skilling" event with workshops on a variety of topics, including an intro to electric cars.

"I've built an airplane. I built my house. This is the next step," said Bill Bell, who lives in rural Browntown and runs a laser engraving business in Monroe.

He's turned a 1991 Geo Metro he bought on Craigslist into a fully electric vehicle that runs on ten 12-volt batteries. Each of the batteries is no bigger than a four-cup coffeemaker but weighs a whopping 80 pounds, so Bell installed extra springs in the car so the batteries won't weigh it down too much. In all, he spent about $8,000 on the Geo, batteries, controller and related supplies.

Bell expects his electrified Geo to last about 30 to 35 miles between charges.

"This certainly couldn't be my only car," he said. But the more expensive gas gets, the more practical his Geo will be. "If we had gas rationing, hey, I could go plug in my car."

When he lifts the hood, the cleanliness is striking. There's no layer of grease and exhaust-blackened oil buildup, just wires and a controller box mounted on a sheet of plywood. When he turns the ignition, a vacuum pump whirrs briefly before the vehicle goes silent. It drives in near-silence, without the belches and growls of the typical internal combustion engine.

Like Bell, John Ivanko doesn't rely solely on his electric car for his transportation needs.

Back in 2008, "right when the energy crisis really took off," he and his wife Lisa Kivirist were trying to find a way to get to their bank four miles south across the Wisconsin-Illinois border in Winslow from their home in rural Browntown.

The challenge: they wanted to fuel the 8-mile trip "with the sun."

They found the solution in a like-minded couple who live down the road, Phil and Judy Welty. The Weltys refurbish Citicars, a small but street-legal electric vehicle produced in Florida for a short time in the midst of the energy crisis of the 1970s. The Citicar can go up to 40 mph and is intended for driving around town. Only 2,500 were ever produced.

Now Ivanko drives one: a red Citicar he spent about $3,200 to fix up with the Weltys. The vehicle is charged on electricity Ivanko and his wife collect from solar panels.

The Weltys are leading the workshop on electric cars this Saturday at the "Speed Skilling" event - which is taking place on Ivanko and Kivirist's farmstead on County P.

The appeal of the Citicar doesn't rest only on the potential for off-the-grid sustainability. It's also super cute.

"We thought about putting it in the Cheese Days parade," Ivanko said. "It wouldn't take much to make it look like a chunk of Gouda cheese."

Citicars first caught the eye of Phil Welty in a 1975 article in Mother Earth News and he tried for "many, many years" to find one, he said. Finally, in 2002, he spotted four dilapidated Citicars "amongst the weeds and debris" in a defunct amusement park in Rockford.

He saw them in passing, and when he and his wife went back to find them later, the little cars were gone. A year and a half later, he found the same Citicars on Craigslist and snapped up all four for $400 total.

From there, the Weltys' obsession grew. They found another Citicar "about up to here in manure" on a farm outside Janesville, he said. They bought another off eBay and picked it up in Tennessee. Phil, a retired electronic repairman, handles the wiring. Judy does the "cleanin' and the polishin'." Altogether, they've refurbished ten Citicars in the past decade.

"They're green. That's our thing," she said. She and her husband heat their home with wood and get hot water via solar panels.

Phil Welty aims to "beat the gas company" but for short-term practical purposes, he says electric and gas-fueled transportation will coexist and mingle as carmakers and engineers experiment and refine. Since Citicars aren't practical for most rural driving, the Weltys rely on their Chrysler Town and Country van, Toyota pickup truck and a biodiesel-fueled tractor for most of their transportation needs. Sometimes they take one of their rehabbed Citicars to a classic car show in Monroe.

"Everybody flocked around," Phil Welty said of a show in 2011. He got hoarse talking to people about the car.

Even if the Volt hasn't yet taken off in the area, smaller new electric vehicles are showing promise.

Jim Becker, who runs Count KK Tire Serivce, is within a week of getting an auto dealership license to sell two-seater Bad Boy MTVs (Multi-Terrain Vehicles). These battery-powered vehicles are rugged enough for farm and trail use and have open sides like a 4-wheeler but they're legal to drive on city streets up to 35 mph. They're legal to drive around Monroe and can go 50-plus miles between charges, he said.

"There's going to be more interest in these," he predicts.

Ultimately, the future of electric vehicles depends on people getting frustrated at the pump.

"I think electric's got quite a future," Phil Welty said. Even if people just switched to electric for their shorter commutes, he added, the emissions cutback would be significant.

And sometimes, it really is just about sticking it to the gas man. Judy Welty says she knows a chiropractor who drives a Citicar 24 miles roundtrip to and from work.

"Every time he goes past a gas station, he toots his horn," she said.