SINGAPORE — As the Certificate of Entitlement (COE) for his conventional Nissan car neared its expiry date, Mr Adrian Oh decided it was time to put his lingering idea of switching to an electric vehicle (EV) into action.

“We mainly wanted it for the sustainability factor, in terms of emissions on the road, as well as the stability in fuel prices compared to the more volatile petrol pump prices,” said the 58-year-old, who works in the manufacturing industry.

He also went a step further by installing a charging station at his landed home — which he described as a straightforward and rather affordable process costing around S$2,000 — after ordering a BYD electric car in June.

Mr Oh is among an increasing number of people in Singapore who are buying electric cars, as the Government dangles various carrots to prospective users to replace all internal-combustion engine vehicles with cleaner electric ones by 2040. 

The move is part of the nation’s efforts to achieve its net-zero-emissions climate goal by 2050.

For the first five months of this year, about one-third of new cars registered here were electric ones — compared to almost one in five in 2023, and slightly above one in 10 in 2022.

Some industry experts attributed the surge to the availability of more mass market electric cars, apart from the existing government subsidies to incentivise early adoption of EVs.

The EV Early Adoption Incentive provides a rebate of up to 45 per cent on the Additional Registration Fee — capped at S$15,000 — for fully electric cars and taxis. A Vehicular Emissions Scheme offers another S$25,000 for cars with zero tailpipe emissions, such as EVs. Both schemes are available until end 2025.

“EVs used to be very expensive toys, if you will, because the cost of building (them) only justified building premium ones,” said automotive consultant Say Kwee Neng.

“But what has transformed that is the advent of mass-market EV brands.”

Still, Singapore’s adoption rate of EVs is miles behind that of other countries.

In Norway, for example — where efforts to encourage the use of EVs trace back to the 1990s — nine out of 10 new cars sold in January this year were electric cars, according to a report by news agency Reuters.

And despite the pick-up in interest here, electric models comprised just 1.8 per cent of the entire car population — or 11,941 of 651,302 — in 2023. 

Analysts however suggested that this would not be the right metric to focus on because it naturally takes time to replace existing cars on the road with new ones.

But even as Singapore charges ahead with its EV plan, some drivers who have bought these cars are experiencing pain points in their daily use.

Mr Jason Lai, who bought his Tesla electric car two years ago, bemoaned the lack of a charging station at his condominium in Tanjong Katong.

The inching up of fees to charge his car, and the decline in petrol pump prices since he first converted to an EV, are also chipping away at the fuel cost savings he was hoping to reap.

"When I bought it petrol was at an all-time high. Now charging costs are increasing, with the hassle, and additional charge for road tax, I don't think I'm saving much," he said.

From the overall cost of ownership to lack of access to chargers and range anxiety — such pain points for EV users have largely been the same over the years, said drivers, transport experts and industry players.

The experts were also quick to caution that while any prospective EV buyer would welcome more perks and subsidies, it would not be advisable for the authorities to rush into handing them out.

First, to stimulate the growth of the electric car population such that it outpaces that of EV chargers would only serve to make the perennial pain point of inaccessibility of charging more acute, they noted.

As it stands, the growth in the number of EVs here has outpaced that of charging points over the last five years, based on figures from the Land Transport Authority and past media reports. 

More importantly, it is important to not lose sight of Singapore’s vision of a car-lite society, which calls for zero growth in its car population.

Transport analyst from Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) Victor Kwan said: “It’s not about encouraging EV per se, it’s (about) not encouraging cars at all. 

“If a car is really necessary in your lifestyle, because you have older folks, you need to fetch your young kids, for example — then consider an EV,” said Dr Kwan. 

ELECTRIFYING EXPERIENCE FOR SOME DRIVERS

Three quarters of about 4,700 respondents in Singapore (76 per cent) cited environmentally-friendliness as a reason to favour an electric car in a recent survey.

The poll on attitudes towards EVs was conducted by market research firm Rakuten Insight in February, which also covered 11 other markets.

Other reasons include affordability to power EVs in the long run compared to petrol (55 per cent), availability of government subsidies (37 per cent) and greater ease and comfort in driving (24 per cent).

One electric car driver, Mr Eugene Lau, told TODAY: “I have always wanted to switch to an EV to be more sustainable since driving is unavoidable for me as I have to send the kids to school in the morning and my wife and myself to work.”

The 40-year-old urban planner, who lives in a Housing and Development Board (HDB) flat, made the switch last year.

Mr Malcolm Loh, 57, made the switch from a diesel-powered BMW 216 Grand Tourer to a Tesla Model Y in September 2022.

Drawn to it by the good experience he felt when testing out his friend’s Tesla, he also found other benefits in driving the electric vehicle.

“Compared to the diesel car I was driving, I (now) save about 50 per cent (in fuel costs),” said the accountant, who lives in a landed property where he has installed an EV charger.

Prospective buyers are also benefiting from special loan offers by several banks.

For instance, OCBC charges a 2.48 per cent per annum interest rate on loans for EV cars, lower than 2.78 per cent for regular cars.

In terms of profiles of EV buyers who took up motoring loans, UOB told TODAY that it sees a larger proportion of younger motorists going for such cars compared to conventional cars. Meanwhile, OCBC has seen a growing proportion of women motorists looking to finance such green cars last year.

Major retailer Cycle & Carriage Singapore said that the profile of its EV customers "varies" depending on the range of brands and models the firm offers.

“As a car is a big-ticket item in Singapore, it is not surprising that the main bulk of (EV) buyers are in the 40 to 60 years old range,” said a spokesperson for the company, which distributes brands such as Mercedes-Benz, Mitsubishi, Kia and Citroën, among others.

“They are also more male-dominated; many of them more affluent and staying in private residences.”

A spokesperson for all-electric brand BYD told TODAY that its customer base is also quite wide due to the range of car models that it has.

"On average, our buyers are in the 30 to 55 age range and are quite evenly spread among the different property types (HDB flats, condominiums and landed homes)," said the spokesperson.

CHARGING WOES

The Rakuten Insight survey found that 35 per cent of respondents felt there was a lack of charging stations here.

Such sentiment was unsurprising, given that landed properties — the only type of residence where one can install a personal charging station — make up less than 5 per cent of homes here.

This effectively means that the vast majority of Singaporeans who drive an EV would have to rely on common charging stations — an experience that can vary depending on each driver’s circumstances and usage needs.

Of the eight EV users whom TODAY spoke to, the three who live in landed homes have all installed a charger in their property.

As for the five drivers who live in condominiums or HDB flats, three did not have any charger in their estate and have to rely purely on chargers elsewhere. The other two, a HDB and a condominium resident, have to share chargers with other residents.

Compounding the problem is that the growth in charging stations has lagged behind the growth of EVs, going by figures since 2020.

In 2020, Singapore had about 1,600 charging points for 1,396 EVs, including 1,217 cars, with the rest being taxis, good vehicles and buses.

The number of charging stations increased to over 3,600 by the end of 2022, when Singapore had 8,978 EVs.

As of end 2023, the population of EVs has grown to 15,992, including 11,941 electric cars.

There are no publicly available figures on the number of charging station then, though in May this year, Minister for Transport Chee Hong Tat said in a parliamentary reply that there were more than 6,200 EV chargers around the island and Singapore is on track to deploy EV chargers at all HDB carparks by end-2025. 

Earlier this month, in another parliamentary reply, he updated that over 7,100 EV charging points had been installed islandwide, and more than a third of HDB carparks have installed charging points, describing the progress as “on track to support a larger EV population”.

Meanwhile, EV users and charger installation firms shared with TODAY various issues related to charger accessibility: 

Availability near home

Ms Ng Lay Peng, 35, lives in a HDB estate in Bidadari with “many electric vehicles”. But the multi-storey car park shared by residents of over a dozen blocks there has only three charging stations.

When her family bought a BYD electric car earlier this year, she did have concerns over charger hogging issues, Ms Ng admitted.

“We primarily work from home and will unlikely charge at commercial locations out of our estate,” Ms Ng, who runs her own public relations firm, explained.

Fortunately, the charging station at the car park has always been available when the family needs to charge their car roughly every four days. She attributed it to her neighbours' considerateness.

“Generally, everyone moves their car away once the charging is done. Also, I’m guessing a bulk of EV owners here also charge at their office?” Ms Ng said.

For Mr Lai, the Tesla driver, the lack of access to a charger is also a pain-point for him, as his condominium development does not have any charger installed.

“I have to instead go over to a building near my place just to charge, or go to my workplace,” he said.

Transport economist Walter Theseira, himself an electric car driver, also does not have a charger at the car park in his public housing estate.

The associate professor at SUSS instead charges his car at the workplace or at places where he is already planning to go and have chargers installed.

“The key thing here is that I don't have to make a change to what I'm doing in order to charge the car. But when you do have to make a change, that's when people actually tend to have a lot of issues with EV,” he said.
  
Holdouts in condos
 
Besides offering a co-funding grant, another official move to encourage the installation of common chargers at non-landed private estates was a regulation change that kicked in late 2023.

It lowered the voting threshold for the installation of EV chargers in condominiums to 50 per cent of residents, down from 90 per cent.
 
This eventually led to Mr Lai’s condominium finally passing a proposal to make such an installation — but he has not seen any progress nor heard any update regarding the installation yet. 

Some installation companies told TODAY that in general, installing charging stations in condominiums is “less straightforward” compared to landed properties. 
 
The first hurdle, as Mr Lai had experienced, is to get enough residents’ approval.
 
Mr Kevin Sim, head of business at EV charger operator Eigen Mobility, said: “One of the most common concerns is residents, typically internal-combustion engine vehicle drivers, will lament at taking away parking lots for EV charging, which they do not utilise or benefit from.”

Some residents may also be concerned over safety issues like potential fire hazards, said some operators.

Aside from waiting for residents’ green light, which could take months, getting approval for the co-funding grant could take a few more months, said operators.

The grant, which funds up to half of specific cost components in the installation of a charger, has an overall cap of S$4,000 per charger.

Furthermore, some of such condominiums would rather not pay anything at all in terms of capital outlay. Instead, EV charging operators are expected to foot the bill for the installation works — which can reach five figures — and recover the costs by taking a cut from the charging fees. 

Some companies estimate it could take about four to five years to recoup such costs, which make them reluctant to take up installation projects on such terms.

Beyond human-related and cost hurdles, existing infrastructure issues may also pose challenges to the installation of charging stations. These include insufficient power capacity or poor mobile phone reception at certain underground carparks.

“EV charging stations rely on telco communications and the use of mobile apps and therefore it is challenging to install EV chargers in carparks with weak telco signals,” said Mr Goh Chee Kiong, chief executive officer of charging operator Charge+. 

Hogging issues

Early EV adopters said that although there were fewer charging stations several years ago compared to today, they were more likely to find unoccupied ones at malls or other public places back then.

They attributed this to possibly the even lower number of electric cars at the time.

Another possible reason is that while there has been an increase in the total number of charging points islandwide, they may have been installed at new locations instead of being placed at the same location, said Assoc Prof Theseira.

Hogging of public chargers has worsened the situation, said some EV users.

Mr Loh, the Tesla user, said that a particular country club that he frequents has four free chargers, which he occasionally utilises when he goes there.

“There were several occasions when I went there during the day and noticed the chargers were all taken up. But what made it worse was the chargers were hogged by those whose cars were already fully-charged,” he said.

In recent months, major charging point operators such as Charge+ and SP Group have introduced “idle fees” for cars that continue to be plugged in despite a full battery, after a given grace period.

Charge+, which has about 2,000 charging points islandwide, imposed such fees sometime this year at two locations and is monitoring others.

“Since the implementation of the idle fee, we have observed high levels of charging etiquette where drivers move their EVs promptly after finishing their charging,” said Mr Goh.

SP Group, which has more than 1,500 charging points across more than 400 locations, started off by sending alerts to drivers via its app to inform them to move their cars when the charging sessions were completed.

Last December, it introduced idle fees at eight locations, in light of the increasing number of EVs and the need to “reduce waiting times through improved charger availability,” said Mr Dean Cher, the company’s head for mobility and sustainability energy solutions.

“Using real-time data and through user-feedback”, the company has since expanded locations where idle fees will be charged and enhanced the maximum fee chargeable.

While such moves are generally lauded by EV users, some pointed out that there may be practical reasons why drivers leave their cars at the charging lot for certain periods of time, such as when they are having a work meeting.

“It can’t be that halfway through the meeting, the driver excuses himself and makes others wait while he goes to remove his car and find another parking lot?” said tech entrepreneur Samuel Tan, who drives an electric car.

The same applies to some drivers who visit malls for meals or movies that may run for two or three hours. 

"A direct-current fast charger can top up an EV's battery by 80 per cent in half an hour," says Mr Terence Yap, senior marketing and business development executive at Quickcharge.sg.

"Depending on the various factors like the car model or the charger model itself, an alternating-current charger can top up a battery by 20 per cent in about 45 minutes, or longer."

ACTUAL COSTS, RANGE RELIABILITY

Beyond charging woes, EV drivers also have to grapple with other issues such as: 

Cost of purchase

Electric cars are known to be generally more costly than their conventional counterparts, and EVs were targeted mainly at the more well-heeled when they first entered the market here.

During the budget debate for his ministry in 2020, then Senior Minister of State for Transport Janil Puthucheary noted that the upfront cost of EVs was about 78 per cent higher than equivalent internal-combustion engine vehicles.

The affordability issue improved slightly in May 2022, when the maximum power output threshold for an EV to qualify under the Category A COE was revised upwards from 97kW to 110kW, allowing more EV models to fall under this category.
 
Category A premiums tend to be cheaper than that of Category B.

Major distributor Cycle & Carriage Singapore’s first fully electric passenger car here was launched in 2019 — a Kia Niro, which is a Category A model.

“(Currently), we have a total of 26 models of EVs including passenger cars and light goods commercial vehicles,” said a spokesperson from the company.

Out of the 26, 17 are passenger cars, with four under Category A COEs and the remaining 13 under Category B COEs.

It is notable that the entrance of some mass market models, such as those by Chinese maker BYD, has bumped up the total number of new electric car registrations.
 
BYD models, in fact, are the best-selling electric cars in the first five months of the year, numbering almost 2,200.
 
Mr Tan the entrepreneur bought his EV, an Audi e-Tron Sportsback, from a friend who wanted to change to a different car.
 
While he was interested in a vehicle that reduced emissions, Mr Tan said he would not have taken the plunge had he not found a “good deal”. He declined to share the price, but described it as “around the same” he would have paid for a conventional car.

Rakuten’s survey on electric cars also found that more than half of the respondents said they would only buy an electric car if they were cheaper or at most, similarly priced, to an internal combustion engine one.

Long-term cost
 
Beyond the car-cost price, some users were also concerned about how much they would actually save in the long term.
 
Many users noted that car charging prices had been creeping up over the years — some estimating the rise to be around 20 to 30 cents per kilowatt hour, depending on the charging station.

A full charge for a 50kWh battery might cost about S$10 more, for example.

In contrast, petrol prices have eased slightly from their record highs of over S$3.20 per litre in 2022 for 95-octane fuel to be under S$3 today.

Mr Lai, the electric car driver who does not have a charger at his condominium, bought his EV when petrol prices were sky-high.
 
“But now petrol prices have gone down a bit, while charging prices have gone up. At the same time, we pay an additional road tax component — I dont think I'm saving much,” he said.

Full EVs are charged an Additional Flat Component of S$700 on top of the annual road tax, to partially cover the fuel excise duties paid by equivalent internal combustion engine vehicles.

Industry observers noted that as part of the contract to allow install chargers at certain premises, premise owners or administrators get a cut of the charging fees. This may lead to a mark up in the price that users eventually pay.

“To be clear, drivers are okay to pay for the electricity, and a mark up for the service provided and maintenance of the charger, for example,” said Assoc Prof Theseira.

“But we ask ourselves is it really right, when we see so many layers (of costs), where a party takes a cut of it?”

Theoretical vs actual range 

Drivers who spoke to TODAY generally take the maximum distance range when fully charged as declared by the manufacturer with a pinch of salt and discount it by about 10 to 15 per cent.

“And you also ‘set aside’ the last 20 per cent or so — because usually you wouldn’t be driving around at that last 20 per cent, you want to be at home charging already,” said Mr Tan.

“So you are left with 60 plus per cent of the range that the manufacturer markets.” 

Most electric cars have a range of 300km to 500km on a full charge.

While driving to Malaysia is arguably a favourite pastime of many Singaporeans, for Mr Tan personally, he is hesitant to drive his electric car across the border.

As he is not very familiar how prevalent, accessible and dependable the chargers are over there, he would rather err on the side of caution, he said.

SHOULD MORE CARROTS BE DANGLED?

Drivers and retailers alike point to more subsidies to make it more appealing, cost-wise, for a person to own and drive an EV.

But analysts pointed out that EVs are meant to be a “lesser of two evils” sort of alternative to conventional cars with higher emissions, and a car-lite society with a well-connected public transport system is still Singapore's end goal.

Besides, Mr Say, the automotive consultant, noted that Singapore motorists who want to buy brand new cars tend to be the more well off.

“They generally are not so much driven by incentives — even though it helps — but they will say that ‘Hey, I really like that new toy and I want to buy it’. And these are the top 5 per cent of income earners,” he said.

He also compared EVs now to automatic-transmission cars when the latter were first introduced into the market, with initial scepticism by motorists used to manual-transmission four-wheelers.

After hitting a certain critical mass and enough people knew about the convenience of it, everyone began turning to automatic cars and it eventually became the norm.

“(Similarly) when people start seeing so many EVs running on the road, people are going to say that ‘hey, there must be a secret to this,” he said.

Assistant Professor Terence Fan from Singapore Management University said that ultimately, the sale of traditional internal combustion engine cars will stop by 2030. 

So there is little cause to worry if people will be on board by then as they will “fall in line” regardless, he added.

However, he pointed out that since the aim of transitioning to EVs is to reduce emissions, it is important to look at the entire lifecycle emissions produced by the vehicles. 

And on this count, he noted there are studies that show that EVs leave a larger carbon footprint in its production stage, and would take six to seven years of “intense” use to achieve parity with a traditional car in terms of overall emissions.

Does this mean that it is worth looking at a longer-term COE, for example, so that the electric cars can be on the road longer?

Not necessarily so, said the experts.

Asst Prof Fan said that if one were to reconsider the COE duration for EVs, the duration for other vehicles may need to be relooked too.

Other experts noted that while the current COE system has served Singapore relatively well, it is not perfect and has come with its own set of problems. 

The 10-year validity has also contributed to supply and price volatility, which led the Government to take a “cut and fill” approach recently to even out the quota supplies.

In all, any change to the COE system to prepare for an EV-focused Singapore would probably require a comprehensive relook, and not tweaks.

Meanwhile, for Mr Lai the Tesla user, while he is generally satisfied with his car's performance, he is still weighing the pros and cons of sticking to an EV or switching back to an internal combustion engine car — or something in between.

"I'm monitoring the car market and also the COE prices. If it's a good offer, and there's a hybrid model that I want, why not?"