There are about a dozen electric cars registered for use on South Australian roads and four of them are garaged in Goolwa.

Edward Booth, state president of the Australian Electric Vehicle Association, built two of the four and now has plans for another.

He first took an interest in electric-powered vehicles on a visit to Italy with wife Jane around six years ago.

"Florence allows electric cars in the old part of the city, but not petrol. They have rechargers instead of parking metres."

The mostly-retired civil engineer began by dabbling with electric bicycles, but wet weather soon put paid to that experiment.

With help from a knowledgeable friend, Rod Muller, Edward took a battered old 1986 Subaru Sherpa, and rebuilt it into the first electric car registered in SA under recent rules.

It took about four months, but Edward said only about two weeks of that was actual building - the rest was "waiting around for parts to arrive."

"As soon as I had built the Sherpa I thought - ‘I could have done that better’ - and started working on the Fiat X1/9.

"It is faster and much more sophisticated," Edward said.

Although the Sherpa’s batteries are getting tired, taking more than five hours to charge from flat, it still makes a useful little runabout in Goolwa and Edward is constantly asked about it.

It starts in third gear and runs completely silent, which takes a bit of getting used to.

Gauges show the available power and voltage, so you always know when you need to recharge.

"You just have to remember to turn it off when you park," Edward said.

There is of course no change in noise levels, as with a petrol powered car, to remind the driver that the power is still flowing.

Edward plans to replace the batteries with new generation lithium ion batteries, which will charge up quicker, last longer between charges and provide very strong acceleration.