Tax breaks on hybrid and fully electric cars cost the Dutch treasury €500m last year, the Volkskrant reported at the weekend.

The benefits have been reduced since the beginning of 2014 because no-one anticipated they would be so successful, the Volkskrant said. For example, the financial advantages of buying a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV could mount up to €31,000 on a pre-tax dealer price of €40,000.

Last year, 22,000 hybrids and electric cars were sold in the Netherlands, many more than before the tax breaks were introduced.

In December alone, more than 2,000 Volvo V60’s, almost 5,000 Mitsubishi Outlanders, over 700 Opel Amperas and 577 fully electric Teslas were bought as owners tried to beat the tax change deadline.

Seven tax breaks

People with company cars and the self-employed benefit most from the seven different tax breaks, the paper said.

The Dutch car sector organisations Bovag and Rai, which had lobbied hard for measures to stimulate the use of greener cars, now says they have gone too far and are distorting the market.

‘It is very odd that Mitsubishi sent its entire worldwide production of the Outlander PHEV to the Netherlands in the first months of the year,’ Bovag spokesman Tom Huyskens told the paper.