I am a small government, hands off the market kind of guy but the fact is that in a country like Israel the government is in and off everything already. VAT at 16% (don’t get me started on the evils of VAT, I own a small business and 16% of all my working capital is tied up in an interest free loan to my government) is on everything. Cars, and everything associated with them, cost a fortune which makes all business in this country more expensive. I have a delivery van and my sales guys have cars: the costs are huge.
If the Better Place car cost an extra ₪30,000 ($8,000) I estimate that would just make the car similarly priced to petrol models that feel the same to drive. I still think that the running costs would be considerably lower. That’s not a deal breaker but it would dramatically slow the uptake.
As you can tell I want this to succeed, I’m not a dispassionate observer any more because if it fails I’ll own a turkey! But nevertheless, we have to know that no industry is more distorted already than big oil (save perhaps pharmaceuticals) and so the playing field is not level to start with.
