If you're in the market for a high-performance car that's easy on your conscience and your carbon footprint, you've been out of luck for years.  But your luck is about to change.  The automotive press is reporting on a bumper crop of green sports cars, both in concept and nearly ready for the road.  The Detroit Free Press reports, "A little roadster that goes into regular production in two weeks is already electrifying the auto industry."  The Tesla Roadster "deliver pin-you-back-in-your-seat acceleration -- 0 to 60 miles per hour in a Ferrari-like 3.9 seconds," all on plug-in electric technology "that will never use a drop of gasoline. And it's billed as being able to go 221 miles in mixed city/highway driving on a full battery charge."  Skeptics, however, say that the Tesla's $98,000-plus price tag, its "exotic battery technology and lack of onboard backup power mean it will remain a niche vehicle."

The London Times reports, "A ‘plug-in' hybrid sports car that needs to be refueled only once a year made its European debut at the Geneva Motor Show yesterday.  Fisker, the American company behind the" Karma sports sedan, "claims that if the car is driven for no more than 50 miles each day and recharged at night it could conceivably run on one tank of petrol for more than a year."  Company founder Henrik Fisker told the Houston Chronicle that the automaker "has been getting ‘between 50 and 100 orders a week' for its plug-in electric hybrid Karma sports car, which will begin rolling off the production line in the fourth quarter of 2009."  

GQ magazine notes that, "unlike the hybrid Fisker Karma and the electric Tesla Roadster before it, the new LifeCar uses hydrogen power. ...Too bad it tops out just shy of 100 mph and is just a concept."  Italy's Portalino calls the LifeCar "an awesome chunk of eco-sport goodness," while The Future of Things notes, "It is powered by a fuel cell and it is claimed to have a driving range of 200 miles." 

Luxist reports, "In the search for a greener future including more eco-friendly vehicles Lotus is taking matters into their own hands to ensure the existence of the internal combustion engine inside a carbon-neutral car."  Lotus has taken its existing Exige sports coupe and mated it to a unique tri-fuel engine that can run on gasoline, ethanol or methanol.  The tri-fuel Lotus Exige 270 "runs at its peak of 270hp best when using the third fuel option."  Edmunds Inside Line notes the Exige gets "from zero to 60 mph in 3.8 seconds," adding, "The Lotus tri-fuel technology could be ready in five years or less, but it could be two decades before a workable methanol infrastructure could be in place."