Is the UK’s Tax Man still short-sighted in giving incentives for electric cars?

The British government is not doing enough to give consumers enough incentives to purchase electric cars, says Better Place LLC CEO Shai Agassi in an interview with the UK newspaper The Guardian. The interview quotes Agassi  as saying that other countries including China, Denmark, France, Japan, Israel, and the USA are giving incentives and tax deductions ranging from 5,000 Euro in France to zero car taxation in Denmark for persons willing to purchase electric cars over those burning fossil fuels.

Although the British government did pass legislation to give tax incentives of up to 5,000 Pounds on the purchase on an electric car, Agassi claims that these British purchase incentives are “too small and too short term to make investing in an electric car worthwhile.”  The British tax incentives are only to be in effect through the year 2012, with the majority of the government’s budget for this purpose set up to only last through the first half of that year, according to the aforesaid news sources.