Electric vehicle may be a common thing on Singapore roads soon

Samanatha Chiew Published on Mon, May 29, 2017 / 1:37 PM GMT+8

A-

A+

SINGAPORE (May 29): Singapore is one of the first few Asean countries to test-bed electric vehicles (EV), but its deployment has been rather slow, say RHB lead analyst Shekhar Jaiswal in a Monday report.

A taskforce was established in 2009 to formulate an EV test-bedding programme. Two years later, Phase 1 of this test-bed was launched, involving global companies such as Mitsubishi Motors, Robert Bosch in collaboration with SingTel and Greenlots, Daimler AG, Renault-Nissan, Keppel Energy and Senoko Energy.

Currently, Singapore is undergoing Phase 2 of its EV trials, involving car-sharing, taxis and buses instead of private cars. The drawbacks of large-scale EV ownership among private car owners remain to be higher upfront costs and lack of infrastructure. There were only 33 EVs in Singapore as of end 2016.