On their drive from Cincinnati to Toledo this week, Bill Spratley and Greg Kuss could find only two stops along their route -- in Dayton and Bowling Green -- where they could access a charging station to repower their Chevrolet Volt electric hybrid vehicle.

Next year they plan to make the same trip, and Mr. Spratley hopes to find more electric vehicle charging stations along the route.

"That's the challenge. If we do this next year, can we cut down on gas usage?" said Mr. Spratley, executive director of Green Energy Ohio, an organization that promotes wind, solar, and other forms of green energy.

To promote green energy and electric vehicles, Mr. Spratley and Mr. Kuss, a Green Energy Ohio trustee and chief executive officer of SolarVision LLC, a Columbus company that does large-scale solar array projects, are driving a jet-black Volt on a 534-mile trip around Ohio this week, and arrived Wednesday at the University of Toledo's Scott Park campus. They are also making stops in Columbus and Cincinnati. Their first GEO Electric Vehicle Tour del Sol campaign will visit Warren today and Cleveland on Friday.

At each stop the two men have held three-hour discussions on electric vehicles and green energy. The discussion at the Scott Park campus featured University of Toledo officials, who talked about the university's research into clean fuels and allowed the two men to recharge their Volt at the university's charging station.

"I think what we want is to acquaint people with electric cars and the fact that they equate with green energy," said Mr. Spratley, who praised Toledo as the "mecca" of green energy in Ohio.

About 100 years ago, Ohio-born inventor Thomas Edison built an electric car and imagined one day that everyone would own one, Mr. Spratley said.

"He had the idea. Now we have the technology to do what [Edison] wanted to do," Mr. Spratley said. "But what's missing now is the number of chargers."

Part of the reason for the Tour del Sol, he explained, was to promote the need for more charging stations that could enable greater acceptance of electric hybrid vehicles, such as the Volt, the Nissan Leaf, the Toyota Prius Electric Hybrid, and the new Ford Focus electric vehicle.

Officials said they didn't know how many charging stations exist in the Toledo area.

The response to the tour has been better than expected, Mr. Spratley added. "The excitement we're seeing all along the way is really something because what we have … right now are a lot more solar panels and wind turbines than chargers. Yet down the road in Bowling Green, they already have three public chargers. So we expect more cities and universities to start deploying these chargers soon," he said.

Once that happens, Mr. Spratley said vehicles such as the Volt, which can travel solely on electric power for about the first 40 miles before a gas engine kicks in, will stop being just a "commuter car" and be thought of as a vehicle with more potential.

Derek Harper, an information technologies manager for General Motors, drove a GM-owned Volt from Ann Arbor to Toledo on Wednesday to take part in the Tour del Sol forum. He got halfway to Toledo before the car's gas engine kicked in, but he said a charging station along the way would not have helped.

"It takes about 3 1/2 hours to recharge at 220 volts," he said. But that makes it ideal for driving around town and recharging overnight, he added.

Fitz Crawford, a salesman at Thayer Automotive Group in Bowling Green, drove a new electric hybrid Prius to the forum. The car can travel 12 miles on all-electric power before using its gas-battery hybrid power train.

While 12 miles isn't a lot, Mr. Crawford said, the car works well in Bowling Green because it takes only about an hour to recharge.

Mr. Crawford added that while electric vehicles are in their infancy and varied in their approaches to mileage, battery design, and recharging, he thinks they are here to stay and will continue to improve.

"I think the important thing right now is all the manufacturers are, at least, dipping their toes into this thing," Mr. Crawford said. "They're all doing something different, but at some point, it is all going to come together."

Contact Jon Chavez at: jchavez@theblade.com or 419-724-6128.

First Published June 7, 2012, 4:09 a.m.