The Big Read: After a decade of fits and starts, it’s all systems go for Singapore electric vehicle dream
EVs have emerged as the darling of green transportation around the world and been touted as transportation’s answer to reducing climate change emissions.
But such days are now behind him. Although still not the most ideal arrangement, Mr Koh today has more options nearer to his flat — the Shell petrol kiosk at Yishun Avenue 5, Orchid Country Club and Sembawang Country Club. While some drivers who plan to switch to EVs struggle with “range anxiety” — the fear that the EV won’t have sufficient charge to complete a journey, or, for some Singaporeans, complete a weekend trip to Malaysia without needing a tow truck — Mr Koh said the fears are misplaced.
As one of those who had placed a S$150 deposit to order a Tesla Model 3 the moment the United States carmaker’s Singapore sales portal went live earlier this month, Mr Koh said he now has no doubts about the feasibility of owning one, even as a HDB dweller. For more than a decade, the Government had been adopting a start-stop approach to the mass adoption of electromobility here — leaving prospective EV buyers and industry players unsure as to whether EVs have a future in Singapore.
But as it turned out, the two entrepreneurs were ahead of their time. Their ventures did not take off. Former Singapore Armed Forces mechanic Clarence Tan with his Corbin Sparrow, a three-wheeled electric car. He invested S$250,000 to set up The Green Car Company in 2008, with a dream to manufacture 2,500 two-seater EVs a year out of a workshop the size of
Mr Masagos Zulkifli, then Environment and Water Resources Minister, famously hit back in an interview with international news agency Bloomberg in August 2019, saying that Tesla’s EVs are about “lifestyle”, not climate. In justifying the levy on the EV — which its owner Joe Nguyen believes, even now, to be the “only electric car in the world that got penalised for emissions” — the Land Transport Authority had pointed out then that electric cars “are not carbon emissions free”.
For one, there isn’t yet a mandate to review the government procurement criteria to favour cleaner energy vehicles, despite having set a target of 2030 to move away from pure ICE vehicles, said Mr Ron Lim, Tan Chong’s head of sales and marketing. Mr Claudius Steinhoff, president and CEO of Mercedes-Benz Singapore, reiterated that carmakers will explore all possibilities to reduce emissions quickly and sustainably — in tandem with the growth of infrastructure needed to support the growth of these new drivetrain and propulsion solutions.
“The only way where EVs would fail is when people don’t see a need to switch over. But in the automotive world, the EV happened to lie at the heart of four megatrends – efficiency, connectivity, autonomous driving, shared mobility.”So why is Singapore betting big on electric vehicles only now? What is the impetus for kicking its electrification plans into high gear?
Dr Walter Theseira, associate professor of economics at the Singapore University of Social Sciences , observed that the cost of lithium-ion batteries for EVs has fallen way below what was projected in Singapore’s electromobility road map, which was published in 2016.on LTA’s lead to guide the formulation of EV policies and its related infrastructure plans, he said that it projected the cost of batteries to fall to about US$300 per kilowatt-hour last year.
Limitations for mass commercialisation of hydrogen fuel cells as a source of power for vehicles include the lack of supporting infrastructure and supply of “green” hydrogen . Agreeing, Prof Subodh said: “We already have the electric grid – as soon as you have the EV, we’re in business. For hydrogen, the cost and supply issues are not yet solved.
Most cars sit idle 95 per cent of the time and do not require fast-charging, which creates congestion points for the grid and damages battery health, she said. The buffering of electricity — which can be done by tapping vehicle-to-grid solutions that use car batteries to reinject electricity into the network during times of peak demand or solar energy — can complement this system, she said.
The vehicle-to-grid solution could find its way to Singapore sooner than later as SP Group, which aims to build the largest public EV charging network here, is already piloting it. — Photo by Raj Nadarajan for TODAY’s electromobility road map, Singapore’s move to ramp up charging infrastructure to 60,000 charging points by 2030 could mean that Singapore is gearing up for a “high” electrification target, said Prof Subodh.
“We have the most stable grid in the world. For the most part, we have installed more capacity than what is needed,” he said. The reason given was that there wasn’t enough available power that can be tapped from the switch rooms — which also cater for the running of lifts, car park barriers and lights — to support a 14.8kW charging station, he pointed out. Such switch rooms tend to be in older estates.
“I don’t actually think we have seriously considered the huge difference to infrastructure and quality of life that higher battery range would make in Singapore, even though daily driving distances are short.” This would take better consideration of the existing habits of drivers who are used to taking only five to 10 minutes to top up their petrol, not 30 minutes to a few hours, she said. “It does not require a lifestyle change. Swapping batteries is akin to basically filling your petrol.”
Ms Aarti Nagarajan, general manager of Shell Mobility Singapore, said that Singapore needs to develop a “wide charging network that allows drivers to not only charge their vehicles where they live, work and play, but also when they are on the go without disrupting their journeys”. In Budget 2021, DPM Heng said that the road tax treatment for EVs will be adjusted such that a mass-market electric car will pay road tax comparable to an ICE equivalent.