The UK government came has come in for criticism as soon as it announced plans to reduce the carbon footprint in the UK by offering British motorists subsidies between £2,000 and £5,000 to buy electric or plug-in hybrid cars from 2011 onwards.

Business secretary Lord Mandelson and Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon said that the government has earmarked £250 million ($375 million) in subsidies for electric cars and another £20 million for a nationwide network of charging stations to promote green technology and the plan will be implemented from 2011for five years.

With Britain having an estimated 26 million cars, this plan is aimed at reducing carbon emissions in the UK. Currently, less than 0.1 per cent of the cars in the country are electric.

Last week, the London Mayor Boris Johnson announced plans to make London the 'electric car capital of Europe', as Johnson intends to have 100,000 electric cars in London with about 25,000 charging points spread all over the city by 2015. (See: London to become the 'electric car' capital of Europe)

The total cost of implementing this scheme would cost about £60 million and the mayor also wants to convert at least 1,000 government utility vehicles to electric by 2015.

Lord Mandelson and Hoon, made this announcement at a racing circuit in Fife, where they test drove the BMW electric Mini E. Hoon said that the plan would give option for motorists as well as help to make the UK a global leader in low-carbon transport.

But the UK government seems to have bungled and the plan came for immediate criticism from the motor industry since they were not consulted. Currently, only the Tesla electric car is in the UK market and that too only in small numbers.

There are the hybrid models such as the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight while the Vauxhall Ampera, will be the first electric car in the UK, but it is not due to come in the market until 2012.

The cost of the Vauxhall Amperais is also likely to be prohibitive and is likely to cost more than £20,000. Even with the £5,000 grant, British motorists would still think twice before buying this car.

The UK motor industry feels that the government should have consulted it and asked which and by when local manufacturers could begin to mass produce the electric cars for the UK market before announcing the scheme.

Portugal also announced a similar scheme last November, with tax incentives of about €800 ($1,000) to motorist for buying electric cars as well as tax incentives for companies such as exemption of road and other vehicle taxes if they convert their cars to electric-powered vehicles from 2010 to 2015. (See: Portugal to start mass use of electric cars by 2011)

The Portugal government signed an agreement with Renault and Nissan to supply and promote zero-emission electric cars by 2011. According to the agreement, the Franco-Japanese joint venture of Renault and Nissan will start delivering its electric cars exclusively to Portugal by early 2011, before selling them globally by 2012.

Portugal will undertake to make 320 vehicle-charging locations operational across the country by 2010 and expand the number of charging stations to 1,300 by the end of 2011. Portugal says it will also pass a decree to ensure that one-fifth of its enire public vehicles fleet bought from the year 2011 would be zero-emission.

Analysts in the UK have also slammed the government's electric auto plan saying that even if the entire £250 million were divided to £5,000 per car, this amount would only put 50,000 electric cars on the road, out of the nearly 2.6 million conventional fuel cars in the UK.

They say that the government gave no thought to the plan since a motorist can avail of this incentive only in 2011 and the government feels that the scheme would not work until electric cars are mass-produced with charging points all over the UK.

Environmentalist have welcomed the plan but cautioned that electric cars are only as green as the electricity they run on. as most of the electricity used to charge the electric vehicles are produced by burning coal, oil or gas.