Super high-performance and green? As you think about your next lux­ury sedan, you may be think­ing about buy­ing a Fisker Karma.

I say that fully kid­ding — I know that none of my read­ers are think­ing about buy­ing a Fisker Karma.

Any­how, I read with inter­est a Car & Dri­ver mag­a­zine review of the new Fisker Karma. Think of it as a much faster Chevro­let Volt with a super beau­ti­ful body.

The gas engine pow­ers a gen­er­a­tor that charges an elec­tric motor that moves the wheels. So it can run only on elec­tric power for about 25 miles.

Why am I com­par­ing the $116,000 Karma to a $44,000 BMW 335d? Here are sev­eral reasons:

1. Per­for­mance? The BMW is faster than the Karma... BMW = 0–60 miles per hour in 5.3 sec­onds. The Fisker does 6.1 seconds.

2. Inte­rior room? Similar.

3. Qual­ity of mate­ri­als, fit and fin­ish? Similar.

4. Fuel econ­omy? BMW wins... 27 miles per gal­lon vs. the Fisker’s 24.

5. Green? Dis­pos­ing of all those lithium-ion bat­ter­ies when they fail to hold a charge any­more will be a night­mare. And diesel is more dirty than gas in some mea­sures but cleaner in others.

The Fisker is a clear win­ner in the dis­tinc­tive­ness realm. You won’t see another on your block, guar­an­teed — no mat­ter where you live. But for every­thing else, the BMW wins.

A final note: the Porsche Panam­era S Hybrid is def­i­nitely a closer vehi­cle to com­pare. It costs a closer $95,000, does 0–60 in 5.7 sec­onds and gets 25 mpg.

Pho­tos are cour­tesy of the Fisker and BMW websites.

I doubt if you read Autoweek mag­a­zine. That’s why I’m shar­ing this story from the Octo­ber 31, 2011 issue.

AAA now has trucks devoted to charg­ing stranded elec­tric cars in six dif­fer­ent US cities. At the moment, that would only be two vehi­cles — the Nis­san Leaf and the Mis­tubishi i. And there are maybe 25 actual cars float­ing around the US. So it’s a near-future-oriented program.

Any­how, I was amused at the thought of a rel­a­tively low fuel econ­omy truck being dri­ven across town to charge up an “ultra-green” car. It kind of defeats the purpose.

Another strange thing is that the trucks charge up the cars to travel another 3–15 miles ... to “reach a charg­ing sta­tion.” Good luck find­ing a charg­ing sta­tion. You might know that most fully-electric cars take about 24 hours to charge from a reg­u­lar house­hold cir­cuit. (A devoted 240– or 480-volt out­let drops the full charge time down to 3–6 hours.)

My con­struc­tive sug­ges­tion? Use a much cheaper tow truck and tow the car to the owner’s home. Or an office or store that has an elec­tric exten­sion cord.

Elec­tric cars aren’t ready for prime time. Yet.