Charge It

Mark Higley is the dude who wears the fake Afro and pounds the keyboards for the retro band Disco Dick and the Mirror Balls.

When he's not onstage, however, he calls himself an "EVangelist" and preaches the gospel of electric vehicles. This month, he hits Earth Day events for his debut as Kansas' only gas-free auto dealer.

Higley says he got religion as a kid washing windows at a gas station in Atchison. It was 1976, and gas prices had spiked because of the OPEC oil embargo. Last year, he finally got his chance to minister to the masses. In July, the California-based ZAP Company started producing the first commercially available electric vehicle since General Motors recalled the EV1 in 2000. Higley knew he had to have one of the three-wheeled beauties.

He bought ZAP's pickup truck and its four-person sedan. After hooking them to an extension cord in his garage for a few hours, Higley could cruise at 40 mph for at least 35 miles. By the end of the year, the smitten musician had written a passionate letter to the chairman of the board, appealing to become a ZAP dealer.

We're thinking a location in Westport or Lawrence might have been best, but Higley opened up a storefront in Leavenworth late last year. With little personal capital and a still-skeptical buying public, Higley admits he's not sure he can convert his fellow Kansans.

"It's not a black Escalade," he said as he treated a Burnt Ends worker to a spin. "You can't set up a lot and start selling a hundred of these a day. But not being able to start big was not going to stop me."

Higley does have one big customer: Sam Swearngin, the guy in charge of Kansas City's municipal fleet, who bought an $11,900 pickup for the water department. If all goes well, Swearngin says, he plans to buy more ZAPs for the city fleet.

Here at Burnt Ends, we'll consider ourselves born again when we see Higley's shop on Noland Road.