Is Singapore's electric vehicle infrastructure catching up with demand?
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You're listening to a CNA Podcast. Hello everybody, it's Otelli Edwards here. Welcome to another episode of A Deep Dive together with my co-host, Steve Chia. Hello, hello. Yes, what are we talking about today? Today, we are talking about electric vehicles or EVs. Have you ever driven one? Well, I know you currently drive. It's so not EV. My current car is so old school there. They call it ICE. It's beyond ICE. It's beyond ICE. Mine as well because I drive a...

To 18 year old car Pretty old A petrol vehicle Yeah yeah So we are about to make That crucial decision If we should switch To an EV or not But I have driven EVs before And they're actually Loads of fun I mean they're really fast They're really zippy And the best part about it In Singapore's weather You can leave the aircon on

even when you're waiting somewhere in the car. That is, for me... I'm not sure you're allowed to leave it idle though while you're parked somewhere. No, because there's no pollution. So you can for an EV. But your and my car, we can't leave it idle. And the seats have these vents that blow out. That's the best, man. Okay, I can see you are already a convert there. Yeah, so that's exactly what we're going to be talking about today.

And actually, EVs was quite a novelty in the past, right? But now it has become mainstream. And I remembered Tesla was obviously the it car back then. But now, apparently, Chinese carmaker BYD, they've overtaken everyone else to become Singapore's top selling brand. Well, in the first four months of this year, at least. And they actually make up 20% of...

total vehicle sales. That's quite impressive. Yeah, so that's why we want to talk about electric vehicles and in Singapore's climate, whether you should get one or when should you get one. We know that registrations for ICE cars, for the petrol, the older vehicles will eventually come to an end. They're being phased out by 2030.

So now people are thinking, when do I make the switch? We keep talking about ICE cars, right? But do our... You know, viewers even know what ICE is. What does ICE mean? Internal combustion engine. Basically, it just means your car uses petrol. Yeah, it basically means it's a non-EV car. Okay, good. We've got that out of the way.

Okay, let's introduce our guests because they are here to help us dissect this topic. We have Associate Professor Walter Tessera, Transport Economist at the Singapore University of Social Sciences. Hey, good to be here. And Stephanie Tan, CEO of EV Electric. And those are the people behind Singapore's public EV charging infrastructure. Thank you for having me today.

Okay, so let's just start with the whole big picture question about some of the biggest pain points that we have when it comes to driving an EV in Singapore, and it has got to be the lack of charging points. So in terms of infrastructure, I know we are now in 2025, we have that 2030 goal to meet. I mean, are we there yet, Walter?

Yeah, so I think this is an interesting question because from the perspective of a user, right, and I happen to own an EV, I've owned an EV for the last four years or so, I think whether you've got charging infrastructure or not is something that is really dependent on your use case, dependent on where you live, where you work, where you play actually. Because if you happen to work, for example, in a building where there's charging, if you tend to go shopping at malls where there's charging and if you've got charging infrastructure,

at your home or your car park, right? If you're living in HDB, there's absolutely no problem at all. But at the same time, we're also aware of owners who experience some challenges with charging because they say, I don't have charging at home, don't have it in my workplace. I've got to make detours to charge. And for those kinds of owners, it is actually a hassle. So it's really dependent on where you are, where you're going to go and so on, actually. Okay, so right now, that means the infrastructure is not quite there yet to fully support charging

an economy that is driven by EV cars. Is that right? Today, maybe if I could add, so we do have almost 20,000 charging points around the island today with about 30 over thousand EVs. So actually, on a Singapore level, I think, Walter, you agree with me, we do have actually enough.

But I do agree, Walter. At the local level, for certain individuals, there might be challenges. When you say enough, do you mean like the ratio of charging stations to number of cars? Yes. Because for example, as the average Singapore driver like you and me, we drive less than 50 kilometers a day. Okay. So translating to a usual average battery life of a vehicle, I think you only need to charge once every five days, seven days. So if you do the math...

Across the island, we actually have more than enough. But local level, we recognise that it's a problem and that's also why government has made a commitment, at least for HDB estates where we can install the chargers. We are committing to ensure that all HDB residents, whether you own an EV today or you plan to own an EV in the future, you will have access to an EV charger by end of this year. So we are on track.

for that. From what Walter was saying earlier about how certain areas like, for instance, the Bidadari estate, for instance, where there might be a higher population of EV drivers as opposed to maybe other estates. So are we there yet in terms of assessing all the finer details of

like the profile of drivers in certain estates? And does that mean we need to recalibrate how many charging points we need? Yeah, yeah. We do track this, obviously, utilisation of charges. When is it time to upscale charges? So we are in the midst of looking at that because adoption actually has been very, very encouraging. Much more encouraging, I think, than we had thought a few years ago. So we are realising that it's time for us to think about upscaling. Initially, when we made the commitment, I think government, we've made the commitment to put at least 3 to 12 charges depending on the size of car park.

So for now, we know that adoption is going up and we need to start thinking about upscaling. Okay, so just to be clear, when you say adoption, it means there are more people buying EVs as time progresses. There are around 19,000 electric vehicle charging points in public areas and also counting condos, commercial buildings. But the thing is, if you live in an HDB flat, there's a multi-story car park with let's say 200 lots, but there are only five charging stations. So, you know, you'll be thinking, hmm,

Doesn't make sense, right? So even if there are only 100 cars that are EVs out of the 200, I can't charge my car because there are only five charging stations. So I think what we're seeing now is there's actually a problem with optimization rather than with charging availability per se. What the government has done, which is really great, is in the first phase of deployment, they've aimed to put charges basically within reach of all residents of Singapore, especially HBU residents, right?

But I think what we're seeing is that in some pockets, you could have cases where there are lots of people owning EV and still there's only the baseline number of charges there. And in other districts such as where I'm living, there's probably an excess number of charges relative to EV owners. And that's because in the first phase, it's just about getting the charges out there. I think the next couple of months and years, it becomes really important to optimise. But the ratio makes sense, optimisation, the numbers make sense, but I just don't feel comfortable. Yes.

knowing that there's a reassurance, right? Yeah, because there's no assurance. Exactly. If I come home, if I come home late, will I get a charger? Yeah. So we are tracking these numbers. Obviously, one of the ways we're doing it is we're monitoring the numbers when we realise that the charging points are getting full quite often on a daily basis that we will need to start looking into upscaling. For some car parks, we're already looking into that. I'll be honest to say electrical infrastructure is something that is holding us back. Many of these car parks

do not have sufficient electrical capacity. So we are rolling out the tenders already. We've just called one to upscale the charging infrastructure at these car parks so that when the time comes, we are ready. So in a nutshell, we're talking a lot about having all these charging stations. I mean, are we going to be ready by 2030? I mean, are these things going to be ironed out because then they're not going to be new ICE car purchases or taxis you see come 2030 and then there's a bigger goal of 2040. So do you think we're going to get there by 2030? Yeah.

that we won't be having this same conversation five years from now. So I think we will get there, but I'll have to say that I think it's not just an infrastructure issue. It is also an issue of whether the mindset of how you use the car and charge your car actually can change. So I'll give you some examples of this, right? So I think when we talk to new EV owners, we find that a number of them actually adopt

the same mindset as they used to when they were petrol car owners, which is to say they run their battery down to like 10% or something like that. Then they go and look for somewhere to charge, let's say like a petrol station where they've got high power charges, and they go there and they sit there for one hour and wait for the car to charge or something like that, right? And after doing this for a couple of months, they tell everybody they know owning an EV is so terrible. You know, I have to spend one hour every couple of days charging and so on. And the issue with that is that they're not

really using it. And instead of using a fast charger? Yeah, but they're not using it the way it's intended to be used. That's the issue, you see? You're not supposed to charge up like you would pumping petrol. Ah, okay. So you don't wait to... You could charge as and when is what we encourage people. You happen to be in the supermarket and you happen to see a charger that's available, go and top it up. At night when you go home, if there's a charger available, please top up. There's no need to like

Exactly. So I want to move on and talk about this etiquette. There are some, as known as hoggers, right? When you're hogging, like let's say, you know, the EV lot for like ages to the point that we have to impose fines because we are a fine city. So that's something we have to do. And at this point, has that worked? I mean, are we seeing...

Less of these car park hoggers. So we are trying to educate Singaporeans as well about how do you charge. Please be considerate for fellow motorists. Please move out after you finish charging. We obviously don't expect someone at 3am to move their vehicle. We're more talking about fast charges or during the daytime if you finish charging, please move out. So these are some of the messages that we keep trying to encourage. Actually, what is a fine line? What is a grace period?

once you're done charging your car? Every operator imposes different log hogging fees. So it depends. But generally, what we see, they only impose it, like say, after 9 or 10 o'clock in the morning. So obviously, no one expects you to move your vehicle. But at the same time, if we continue to see the number of EV cars...

picking up there'll be greater demand for these charging stations so it's possible such fines will increase but at the same time the convenience people are saying if I come home for the evening I came home at 5 o'clock can't I just leave my car till the next day even though if you park your car at 5 o'clock most likely you will leave your car

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm just saying, but it may kick in that at 9pm, you're fully charged. So therefore, you should remove your car otherwise, right? Yeah. So that's where I think optimization comes in. And by optimization, I mean looking at different ways that you price for charging, for example, right? So what we see in the market today is most charge operators, they tend to have a uniform tariff. Basically, they charge you a certain amount per kilowatt hour and it doesn't really vary by time of day and so on. But

There's no reason why they have to do it that way. They could, for example, implement some kind of differentiated tariff to encourage people to charge at off-peak hours. You could also look at situations like overnight charging, whether it might be appropriate to charge a minimum charge for the entire nighttime block. So as to discourage people from plugging in when they're like 70% and then using it the whole night. I mean, these are issues that I say are optimization because they can be adjusted by changing how you price as well as how you educate people.

And that's how you use a limited resource sector. So that you can nudge the EV drivers. Okay, so here I want to know as well, this is very important, right? Because as we are thinking of, I mean, buying a car in Singapore is not a decision you make lightly, right? I mean, it's a costly affair. So even though we've got the early adoption incentive, the vehicular emission scheme, etc., etc., to encourage people to make that switch, but there is also additional road tax component, right? If you drive an EV, something like $700 on top of the annual road tax. So all in, right, in a nutshell, can you just explain

Yeah, so if you look at EV, right, the main components that you tend to save on are first, you tend to save a bit on the maintenance and operating costs other than fuel. And that's because a lot of EVs, they're expected to have lower lifecycle maintenance costs than ICE cars. And that's because a lot of EVs, they're expected to have lower lifecycle maintenance costs than ICE cars.

Because you essentially don't have to keep on replacing basically the oil and fluids and things like that. And you don't have to send the motor for tune-ups and things of that sort. So operating costs are expected to be lower. And in fact, you see that a number of the EV manufacturers are actually confident enough in the reliability of their product. They bundle it with free servicing or in fact tell you that no servicing is required for the foreseeable lifetime of the vehicle.

So that's one option, right? That's one thing. The other area comes to the fuel cost. And there, it's actually an issue of what are you comparing to? What's the like-for-like comparison? Because what we've seen in the market is if you're able to charge at home, that is, if you live in London and you have access to home charging and you pay the SP tariff, right?

you will almost certainly have lower running costs than any ICE or hybrid vehicle in the market. However, with public charging, it really depends on what's the tariff you're paying. Because with some public charging rates, it could be comparable to a good hybrid. With others, it could be better or worse. It really depends what you're paying for charging. But so overall, would you say it is...

cheaper to own an EV car versus an ICE car moving forward? Yeah, so in the market right now, I'd say if you're looking at a premium kind of vehicle with high power, larger vehicle and so on, it's probably cheaper in the operating cost for the EV because they save a lot on petrol versus hybrids or ICE. But if you're looking at a very mass market vehicle, comparing it to a best-in-class hybrid, it's actually a bit more even. And the reason why

why it's more even today is largely because of expensive charging. Unfortunately, public charging rates now are actually pretty high compared to what you can pay if you had access to home charging at the SP tariff. If I go over to Malaysia, what are the costs going to be like? I mean, not to mention that, I mean... Oh, it's free because maybe you cannot find the charging station. And then you're stuck there. So actually, speaking of which, there's this thing called range anxiety, right? So...

I would be one of those that would be quite worried to be driving across the causeway and then an EV and then I'm like, where's the next charging station? What if I can't find one? And then what if I run out of bat? It's a little bit with the handphone as well. You start panicking if it's down to like 10%. So is that still like a concern? I mean, Singapore we know, but then for drivers who we know want to go to Malaysia and shop and all that. Actually, many of our operators already today, they have charges all the way up to Thailand.

So for I think I'm not sure whether you have Is it good enough? Are there enough? Singaporeans should also be assured that the standards are similar so the type of charging points are similar the connectors are the same so you have no worry about connection problems if you go up to Malaysia and I think many of operators actually in their apps they also show all their charges all the way up. So how

many times have you gone to Malaysia in your EV? Almost a dozen times. So I'll tell you what it is, right? When COVID ended, right, and the borders first opened and so on, I actually drove to KL, right, to see relatives. And at that point in time, there was only one high-power charging station between Johor and KL. And if that station was out, it was not going to be good, right? You could still

drive all the way out to KL, I think. So I drove there. I drove there. I stopped at the charging station. I charged and it was fine, right? But towards the end of last year, when I did the drive again, there was a charging point at almost every other R&R or just off the highway about every 50 kilometers or so. So it would have been really difficult for me to run out of battery last year.

So I think nowadays it's no longer an issue if you're going to a major city in West Malaysia. Maybe to parts in the East Coast, small villages, okay lah. But the main cities should be fine. And over time, the infrastructure can only improve, right? So earlier, because Walter, you were saying that hardly any maintenance for your EV because there's not much to maintain. So you have to change your tires. Yeah,

The tyres isn't every two years. You use your brakes less though. But what about the battery? I think most people don't know EVs are actually a lot simpler vehicles than ICE cars. The number of moving parts, I think, is a lot more complex in the ICE than the EV. But then you see, my old school thinking is that all the electronics and all that, if something breaks down, how does it work? And then the other thing is, do we have enough mechanics? You know what's the difference? It's like a computer. It's just a software update. Oh, so we don't even need to...

You don't even need to go to the station. They will just log in to this website and they will like, ding, sort of download. I think for EVs, most people's concern about will probably be the battery. That's the most complex thing about the vehicle. We want to ask you about that because a lot of stories say that it only lasts, for example, like 10 years. After that, or it's like a mobile phone. Every year, it loses some of its charge. It takes longer to recharge. It doesn't last as long.

Any truth to that and how should we address that? So I think that's the biggest question mark. And only time will tell, I think. But also that battery technology is improving by leaps and bounds all the time. But I think one good thing that we have is that most of the EVs that are being sold in Singapore, actually now they are guaranteeing a 10-year warranty on the battery. So I think that should give Singaporeans some assurance. But it's not like after 10 years because I got to renew COE, so can I change battery or something? Yes, you could. I mean, with the OEMs, with the battery...

Although the battery is a large part of the cost. So what we see in the market is the reality is if you own an EV, you do experience gradual degradation of the maximum charge level over time. So my EV is about four years old. It charges to, I would say, about 90 plus percent of the original. And that is natural. All the EVs go through that. But what the manufacturers do is they tend to warrant it to hold a

minimum maximum charge, right? Up to at least about eight years or so. So the standard in the industry is about 70% maximum charge, right? That's the threshold below which they have to replace your battery under warranty. The other issue regarding reliability is there are a large number of EV models used as taxis in other countries.

And the operator's experience has been that generally those taxi EVs far exceed the warranty mileage before they need the battery overhaul to replace. For Singaporeans, we don't clock that much mileage unless we're a taxi driver. I mean, I don't think it's a concern within a 10-year period of your COE. What about hybrid cars? Is there still a place for hybrid cars? Well, I mean, policy-wise, 2030, you just need to purchase a cleaner energy vehicle. So pure ICE is not allowed.

But 2030, you still can buy a hybrid vehicle. So even if I clean my exhaust pipe, still not allowed. But yeah, is there any value? I mean, if you want to go electric, the only thing I can see the perk is then, again, if I'm like insecure driving across the causeway, I have the opportunity to decide either I want to put petrol in my car or charge the battery, you see. But beyond that... I think 2030, we will see because I do see battery technologies improving so much. I'm not sure...

we will only know closer to 2030 whether it still makes sense to purchase a hybrid at that point in time. That being said, I think there's also this narrative that sometimes goes around, which is that I should hold off buying my EV because technology will improve, right? But I think at this point, you have much less to be concerned about than you might have had, let's say, 10 years ago. I think it's true that if you look at EVs designed and built in the 2010s, none of them actually, technologically speaking, are comparable to those today. But actually, the EVs that were built in the early 2020s

are pretty similar to the ones you can buy today, to the newest designs and so on because the rate at which technology improves has actually flattened out quite a bit. And I'm saying that just because I think there are a lot of people on the fence saying if I buy today, in two years' time, it's going to be completely obsoleted. But I'm saying it's not true. The ones you bought in 2020 are still very, very comparable to the ones you buy today. Yeah, you just need to do a software update. No, and in Singapore's context, honestly, we are...

we don't drive that much. So I don't think you need that large a battery or that. Okay. But what about resale value? Yeah. So I think resale value, I was just talking to some people in the industry to find out a bit, to understand it a bit more. I think the issue about resale value is something that we are still watching and looking very closely. Okay.

And I think they're not enough in the market now for us to have a better sense of. Yeah, so I think the main contributor to this idea that EVs have very bad resale value has actually been something that from another perspective we should be happy about, which is that the manufacturers have actually been over the last couple of years continually dropping the price of their EVs. And the reason why they've been cutting the price has largely been because the technology has been maturing. So the cost of getting the EV out of the factory door has been dropped.

But to the extent that that's going to flatten off, right, we shouldn't expect this kind of surprise to happen anymore. And I think there are signs that if you look at the Chinese market, for example, which has been responsible for driving a lot of these cost reductions, Chinese government has been talking in recent months about how prices are unsustainably low, which to me signals that I think perhaps this era of cost cutting or price cutting is going to come to an end.

And if it does come to an end, I think there's much less of an issue for refill value because it's primarily been driven by why should I buy a used EV when the new one is being sold to me for less. So there's also this idea that the profile of EV buyers at this point are generally men between 40 and 60 and they have the tendency like they want the next new shiny gadget. So it's a second car that they want to buy and want to try out. Do you see that trend changing?

moving forward that, you know, it's about upgrading. Every two years, if the new technology comes in, BYD has something where I can auto-drive. No, midlife crisis, you don't go and buy that. You buy something. But you drive an engine car. Walter bought this car many years ago. I think it was probably

probably he's so young how can it be but now I know that's all I do the average Singaporean is already purchasing yeah my mum just got an EV just last year we were a bit concerned that she'll be taking off too fast so we got her the least powerful that takes some getting used to yeah that part that part yeah

No, I'll agree with that to a certain point. I mean, I think it's true. When I got the car and a couple of years ago, your Tesla buyer was your kind of like tech bro, crypto bro kind of thing, right? But today, I think it's not true anymore. You see lots of families being interested in EVs, of course, all the mass market EVs as well from BYD and so on. And those are all family car buyers. So I think it's much less the case that it's just a toy. So how long are you going to be keeping your car, your current car for, you reckon? Well...

In Singapore, it all depends on COE prices, right? I am trying to figure out should I... Tessa just came out with a new... Yeah, I've been looking at COE prices, so, you know... I know, COE prices are our bane here in Singapore. But yeah, I mean, electric cars are a lot of fun, I gotta admit. So you should try one. They can even drift. Do you know what they call that? Drifting? You mean like too fast, too furious? Yeah, they call that the electric slide. Yeah.

Electric slides. Okay. Actually, I will be a first-time EV buyer. I just want to know golden advice from each of you. Walter? I'd say don't overbuy, right? And by don't overbuy, I mean that I think a lot of buyers... I don't know if you buy or don't buy. So when you see what you're offered in the market, right? There are a lot of bells and whistles that the manufacturers dangle. So a common thing in the market is that you've got like long-range and standard-range models, right? And the long-range models cost a lot more. They pack more battery and so on. And I think sometimes people tend...

think, oh, I need to buy the long range, the premium version to get just that 20, 30% more range. But in reality, in the Singapore market or Singapore driving, you will not need that unless you have a very special use case, like maybe you are a salesman or something like that. You clock several hundred kilometers a day. Or I'm drifting. Yeah, you really want to be. No, thanks.

So maybe don't overbuy beyond your needs because what you'll find is that your cost of ownership is going to be a lot lower if you get, for example, the most mass market model out there. And don't worry about the range because range is actually not an issue in Singapore, provided that you're not that tiny percent of the

population with no charging anywhere where they want to go but for most of us it's not the case you have charging at least somewhere home, work or somewhere we go all our crew vehicles are electric so we have to I would agree with that I don't think there's a need to overbuy I think be mindful about what your patterns are

know what kind of driver you are, how long you drive, what's your mileage generally and then you will be able to know. Maybe think about how you plan to charge your vehicle if you, for now, when you drive around your patterns or if you see the usual malls that you go to or then you're assured of where you can possibly charge. I think these are some of the things that you probably need to think about. The type of driver is important because actually if you're a bad driver, actually you shouldn't buy a car at all.

Oh, then you should drive possibly an EV now that you can park the car for you. Exactly. You don't need to worry about that. So we will have less bad drivers on the road. Maybe because self-driving will eventually be a thing. I'm not sure why you're looking at me, you know, Steve. Yeah, yeah. It's just normal.

seen you on the roads, Atelier. I see that car. Let me take off my EV driver hat for a while because obviously as a driver, I just want more subsidies, right? But I want to say it from the national perspective, the aim of the subsidies was only to try to get to EVs to price parity with conventional vehicles. And I think in the next couple of years, the subsidies will likely be less and less necessary for this price parity because

Because the manufacturing cost of EVs has been dropping so much. So I would say from a public finance perspective, maybe we can scale down the subsidies as the actual buying cost of the EV drops. On that note, we're going to wrap it up. So thanks so much for joining us here on Deep Dive. We hope you've enjoyed this discussion. As always, if you've got any thoughts, comments, just drop us a note, give us a comment on YouTube where you see this. We do love to hear from you.

Shout out to our team, Tiffany Ang, Junaini Johari, Joanne Chan, Saya Win, Hanida, Amin, Shahzad, Dalila and Alison Jenner. I'm Tiffany Dive. See you next week. See you next week.