Clarence (Trip) Barnes 3rd, the colorful Island business owner long associated with his namesake trucking company, is now seeking a new title: green technology pioneer.

On Monday night Mr. Barnes met with a skeptical Martha’s Vineyard Commission subcommittee to discuss a mixed electric car recharging and gas refueling station that he hopes to develop on High Point Lane, adjacent to the Island Cove miniature golf course. The area is not unfamiliar to prospective fuel station developers: Two proposals on abutting lots were rejected by the commission in the past decade for what they felt were unsubstantiated claims of Island fuel cost reduction, competition with other vendors, as well as traffic concerns.

At the commission prepublic hearing review Monday night Mr. Barnes and his associate and family friend, Rubin Cronig, were hopeful that the addition of a green component to his gas station proposal would be enough to earn the board’s approval.

“I think that we need this,” Mr. Barnes told the commission. “I do think that if electric cars are ever going to work they’re going to work here.”

“I know that gas stations have come through here before but they were just about gas,” Mr. Cronig added. “And the idea about the electric recharging station is really bringing home that we’re trying to create a new approach for the Island. I think we would be in an unbelievable position to do an electric-based study, and the equipment’s relatively affordable, all things considered. The beauty of it is that all the test developments have already been done out in California. We’re not prototyping new technology.”

Late last year two new models of mass-market electric cars, the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt, were rolled out in select parts of the country equipped with electric charging infrastructure. Unlike a Toyota Prius which combines a gasoline engine with an electric one, the Volt and Leaf, among other models, depend on an electric engine that can be recharged with a gasoline generator if the charge runs out. Mr. Cronig said that the gas station would supplement the electric recharging station rather than the other way around. The cars, however, are difficult if not impossible to purchase outside of electric car study areas.

“You have the President of the United States here, the other one’s been here, I mean this is where all the big hitters come. If an electric car study is ever going to work, it’s going to work on Martha’s Vineyard,” Mr. Barnes said, adding that he was thinking of converting his used car franchise on Evelyn Way to an electric car franchise.

However optimistic, the plan for the station just off the busy and congested State Road corridor received a frosty welcome from commission members skeptical of the project’s chances.

“When you came in and started talking to us about this some time back you said you wanted to talk this through and see if you should apply,” said Chilmark commission member Chris Murphy. “You didn’t want to spend a lot of money on something that clearly wasn’t going to get off the ground. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I don’t think anybody here has said to you ‘Yep, we could approve this given a little bit.’ You’ve got to take a close look at whether this is something you want to go through with.”

In 1999 the commission denied a proposal for the Vineyard Service Center on State Road, approving it a year later after it had removed its gas station component. The commission later rejected a modification to that DRI, in 2001, when the service center sought to construct a retail fuel distribution facility, and then again in 2002 when it sought to add three gas pumps. Later in 2002 a separate gas station project at the site of the old Coca-Cola bottling plant, Tisbury Fuel Services, was rejected by commission members who cited traffic concerns harmful and questioned the need for another gas station. The project proponents challenged the commission’s decision in court and lost.

“There’s the question of what’s happened in the past,” said Mr. Murphy. “If you look at your proposal in light of the previous proposals for gas stations and look at the fact that they were denied, it’s hard to understand how you could think this would be approved. So now you’re going to go and spend not just a few bucks but a lot of bucks on a plan with no indication from us that it’s going to get approved. In fact, every indication in the historical record is that it won’t get approved.”

Commission members pressed Mr. Barnes for more detailed construction plans for the station as well as additional traffic studies accounting for a variety of situations, including the possible eventual buildout of connector roads from State Road to the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road that the town has discussed building for years. Even then, commission members argued, it would be difficult to determine the impact of the station.

“You need to convince us that traffic won’t be a problem and I don’t think you can convince us of that while there are so many moving parts,” said commission member Linda Sibley.

On Monday Mr. Barnes submitted dozens of pages of previous traffic studies from the rejected DRI applications as well as his own initial traffic work, but the commission found it insufficient. Concerning the request for more detailed plans for the gas pumps Mr. Barnes sounded a note of exasperation.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “What else do you want? We’re working stiffs. We came up with $3,800 to apply for a DRI and now we’re going to have to pay thousands more to get an engineer to make drawings that you wouldn’t understand even if you looked at them.”

The commission’s own Island Plan cites a need on the Vineyard for a fleet of electric vehicles and the recharging stations associated with them.

“The Vineyard holds particular promise for alternative-powered automobiles,” the planning document reads. “Some concerns about these vehicles — such as the duration of battery charges between charging stations . . . are less problematic here, since Island trip distances are relatively short. . . The Vineyard could be the ideal location for a prototype installation of innovative vehicles . . . because only a small number of prototype fueling stations would be needed to service a fleet of experimental cars kept permanently on-Island.”

Mr. Barnes argued essentially the same point in his own inimitable way and added that the Island’s current fueling situation was unbearable.

“There really is a need,” he said. “Nobody wants to go down to Five Corners. It’s a living hell and it’s not going to get any better when we have continued growth. You’re going to make your own decision and I’m going to have to live with that, but this isn’t some goddamned flash-in-the-pan. It’s going to be a state of the art, class act thing . . . The town needs another gas station for Chrissakes.”

Commission member Doug Sederholm suggested Mr. Barnes save his passion for a future public hearing and added a word of warning

“I hope you’ve heard what Chris said, that there is a very clearly defined history to these proposals at that site,” he said. “Caveat emptor.”

“I’ve got it,” Mr. Barnes responded.

Mr. Barnes will meet with the commission again on Jan. 24 to discuss the scope of his traffic study.