Nearly 2,000 HDB car parks to have EV chargers by 2025 for “low-powered overnight charging”

Singapore has expressed its ambition to phase out internal combustion engine (ICE) cars by 2040 in past Budget announcements.

To achieve this goal, the government announced a wide range of measures to accelerate the rate of adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) in Singapore.

For starters, the government has nearly tripled its original target of setting up 28,000 charging points to 60,000 by 2030. In September last year, the authorities announced that over 600 EV charging points will be set up across 200 public car parks in the next 12 months.

Additionally, Singapore is looking to establish eight EV-ready towns in Singapore by 2025. They will be located at Ang Mo Kio, Bedok, Choa Chu Kang, Jurong West, Punggol, Queenstown, Sembawang and Tengah.

These eight towns will be fitted with EV chargers, and other towns will also progressively be EV-ready by the 2030s.

In this year’s Budget speech, Finance Minister Lawrence Wong said that more charging points will be built closer to where people live to further accelerate EV adoption.

In line with this plan, Transport Minister S Iswaran announced today (March 8) that at least three EV charging points will be installed at nearly 2,000 HDB car parks by 2025 to accelerate the “EV-ready” ambition.

Speaking about the Singapore Green Plan 2030 at the Committee of Supply debate, he said that these charging points will “mostly provide low-powered, overnight charging”, to meet the needs of car owners and minimise the load on the electrical grid.

According to the Land Transport Authority (LTA), a “large-scale tender” for HDB car parks will be launched in the first half of this year.

Upgrading of EV infrastructure and revised COE category

To increase the adoption of EVs, all residential estates will have the required electrical infrastructure progressively upgraded.

These upgrades will be financed by LTA through green bonds, and the costs will be recovered from EV charging operators and EV users over the longer term. LTA said that the implementation details are currently being worked out.

New legislation will also be introduced to ensure “safe and reliable” EV charging, and a public consultation will be published later this year.

Additionally, LTA will also revise the Certificate of Entitlement (COE) Category A maximum power output (MPO) threshold for electric cars from 97kW to 110kW, allowing more mass-market electric cars to come under Category A.

“Based on the EV models approved by LTA for use so far, this move will double the number of models that fall within Category A from 10 to 20,” said Mr Iswaran.

The MPO thresholds for Categories A and B were set at 97kW in 2013, to account for the “predominantly internal combustion engine car population” then. This threshold will continue to apply for non-electric cars.

The revision will take effect from the first COE bidding exercise from May 4 to 6 this year.

Featured Image Credit: Lucy Nicholson via Reuters