On Tuesday 16 April 2019 Bas Jacobs, Sijbren Cnossen Professor of Public Economics at Erasmus School of Economics, warned the House of Representatives about the model that the government uses to put billions in subsidising electric driving in a way that is not efficient. Jacobs finds the subsidy irresponsible: ‘This equals the burning of public money’, he said. According to Jacobs the scientific validity of the Carbontax model of Revnext (which underlies all government analyses) is not at all to judge. Decisions are made on the basis of unverifiable assumptions and secret spreadsheets.
‘Something totally goes wrong when every ton of CO2 avoided cotsts €1700,’ says Jacobs. That is 68 times the current European CO2 price. Jacobs warned the House of Representatives that if they give €70,000 to a Tesla driver, which happened until 31 December 2018 with the fiscal stimulus policy, they will create more actions of the so called Yellow vests movement.
The position paper and speech of Bas Jacobs for the hearing in House of Representatives about Electric driving and the Carbontax-model can be found below (in Dutch):
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An overview of media reporting about the subject electric driving and the Carbontax-model and media appearances of Bas Jacobs can be found below (in Dutch):
- Article of Follow the Money, 9 April 2019.
- Article of Nieuwsuur, 16 April 2019.
- Article of NOS, 16 April 2019.
- Article of het Financieele Dagblad, 16 April 2019.
- Article of het Nederlandse Dablad, 16 April 2019.
- Article of RTL Z, 16 April 2019.
- Article of Algemeen Dagblad, 16 April 2019.
- Article of Telegraaf, 17 April 2019.