Every Monday, i would make my way to Bukit Batok Driving Centre for my driving lessons, in hope to getting a licence soon. Although getting a licence does not guarantee being able to drive on the road, especially in Singapore where our cost of owning a car is rocket high.

Cars in Singapore are noted as the highest in the world despite significant price reductions. For instance, the average cost of compact cars has decreased from approximately S$144,292 in 2012 to S$98,920  in 2018. This is influenced by the reduction in the cost of Certificate of Entitlements (COE). Despite an overall price drop in prices Singapore “remains the most expensive place in the world to buy and run a car”, according to a 2019 Worldwide Cost of Living Survey carried out by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

Figure 1: Car prices across various countries

Based on the same car, Singapore car prices in 2019 are up to 6 times more expensive than; Australia (US$18,365), up to 5.5 times more than China (US$20,725) and 5 times more expensive than America (US$21,845). Whilst prices in London for the same car work out at around US$23,00. One of the differentiating factor to the pricing difference is the cost of COE, where in certain years, the cost of COE is equivalent to the cost of a car. The implementation of COE is done by the Singapore government in order to curb the cars on the road, as a pledge to take a step closer ensuring lesser carbon emissions.

Nearly a million vehicles ply Singapore’s roads today, releasing around 6.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2)-equivalent each year, over a tenth of the city-state’s total emissions. Less than 0.5 per cent of these are electric vehicles (EVs). But momentum is building for a green transport revolution. By 2040, Singapore aims to have driven all vehicles running on fossil fuels through an internal combustion engine (ICEs) off the road. Given the 10-year validity of COE, this means from 2030, all new cars will have to run on cleaner energy. They will have to be either electric, hybrid or hydrogen fuel cell ones. And diesel cars and taxis – which emit the, even more, pollutive PM2.5 – will not be sold from 2025(Ning, 2021).

The push towards green vehicles will curb  the vehicle pollutants that harm our health and contain greenhouse gases and causes  climate change. Burning gasoline and diesel fuel creates harmful byproducts like nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, benzene, and formaldehyde. In addition, vehicles emit carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas. Thus, in order to reduce the air pollution brought about by cars, the local government have been constantly looking into ways, with adoption of Coe and in the recent years kick starting the economy for electric vehicles (EV) and introduce Tesla to out markets. It has shown significant progress and development by the local government in keeping the environment safe and free from such pollutants. However, the implementation of green vehicles are still rather limiting in Singapore ,and I truly wonder if it would be possible for us to be able to remove all ICEs by 240 entirely. The lack of charging infrastructure is a top concern, as the Deloitte Global Automotive Consumer Study shows. Currently, there are over 1,800 public EV charging stations offered by providers such as BlueSG, Greenlots and SPGroup in HDB carparks, petrol stations, shopping malls and office buildings. On top of that, there often lies a barrier to adopting use of EV, especially n relation to the safe of an EV. With questions surrounding the possibilities of EV getting caught on fire while charging personal mobility devices and fuel simultaneously. On top of that operational concern, many doubt how much greener EVs are given that the electricity that powers them is, in Singapore’s case, still generated mostly from natural gas rather than renewable sources. Another major concern revolving around adopting EV is the cost of it, with Hyundai Ioniq Electric which costs $167,888, $45,889 more than its  Hybrid variant . EVs are expensive due to the costs incurred to make them, and a huge portion of it comes from the batteries – almost a third of the cost of a typical EV car.  EV batteries are made with expensive metals such as cobalt, nickel, lithium and manganese, all of which contribute to the cost. Thus, when revising as a whole, there seems to still be a barrier for EVs to be fully adopted by the singapore market, and there needs to be shift in perspective in order to attain the goal set up by the government in promoting a more conscious emission levels.

References

Ning, T. S. (2021, August 21). Green vehicles add power to the fight against climate change. The Straits Times. Retrieved April 13, 2022, from https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/environment/green-vehicles-add-power-to-the-fight-against-climate-change

https://www.sgcarmart.com/news/review.php?AID=1577