NEWINGTON - Walk up to the doors with the keys in your pocket and they will automatically unlock.

       Sit in the driver’s seat and the car starts with the push of a button. And the best part?

       â€�"We’ve filled up the car [with gas] four times since we’ve had it,” said Newington resident Anne Andrews.

       Andrews and her husband, Sterling, have been driving their Ford C-Max Energy electric/gasoline hybrid for five to six weeks, and their excursions have included a trip up to Massachusetts for a concert.

       â€�"Yesterday we went up to Massachusetts,” Andrews said on the back porch of the couple’s Ledgecrest Drive home. â€�"So the gas did kick in.”

       But most of the time it doesn’t, which means that they have all but completely slashed fuel expenses from their budget.

       â€�"You never use gas, but the gas is in there,” she said.

       They get 25 miles on the vehicle’s electric charge before having to revert to gasoline.

       â€�"Which around here is great,” Andrews said. â€�"Newington is not a big town. We can do everything we need on that--we might go to the library, or the post office. Then we’ll come back in and charge it again.”

       They make it sound as simple as juicing up your cell phone, only it takes just a little bit longer.

       â€�"On the 110 [battery], it takes about six to seven hours,” Andrews said. â€�"On the 240, it’ll take three to three and a half.”

       The latter is what they purchased a few days later. Newington Electric, the provider of one of two electric vehicle charging stations operating in town, set them up with the new battery the Friday after I met with them.

       â€�"That’ll make it charge a lot faster,” Andrews said.

       Since not everyone has their own personal home-based charging stations, there’s Newington Electric, the other outlet in Market Square and any other location hybrid car owners like Anne and Sterling Andrews can find on the Internet no matter where they are in the country.

       The state Department of Environmental Protection (DEEP) is trying to add more by offering towns grant money to build stations. Recently, there was around $300,000 of state funding available for electric vehicle supply equipment. For charging stations that do not exceed $10,000 in cost, towns can receive up to a 100 percent reimbursement.

       The state has yet to see the impact of that initiative, but Andrews said that finding a place to plug-in has not been difficult.

       â€�"We go camping and campsites actually have electricity, so there are charge boxes,” she said. â€�"They’re all over the place.”

       On their recent trip to Massachusetts, they charged the Ford C-Max at the Lennox Police Station.

       And they haven’t paid for it once.

       â€�"I’ll always look for free [stations] first,” Andrews said.

       There are places that will charge for a charge, but the prices are nothing compared to what it costs to fill a tank with gasoline, they said.

       â€�"It’s pennies,” Andrews said. â€�"It’s very inexpensive to charge.”

       So why isn’t everybody doing it? It might be due to the fact that actually buying the car itself isn’t exactly inexpensive, Andrews said. She and her husband got theirs for $30,000, but pocketed an $8,000 sign-on bonus for their two-year lease.

       But then there’s the car’s lithium battery, which will have to be replaced in about 10 years to the tune of an estimated $6,000, according to the couple.

       That’s been seen as a red flag to some who have asked them about the car, but the couple isn’t put off by that.

       â€�"I’m not worried about 10 years from now,” Andrews said. â€�"They’ll have that figured out by then and we might even trade it in in two years.”

       The state Department of Motor Vehicles does not have records regarding the number of hybrid car owners there are in the state, but reported that 1,249 motorists are riding around in vehicles that are purely electric.