As EVs move up a gear in Singapore, what happens after the sale?

More motorists are making the switch to electric vehicles, which make up almost a tenth of the car population here. At the same time, the pace of change for such vehicles means many questions remain unanswered for owners.

- Aqil Hamzah and Lee Nian Tjoe

When management consultant Henry Fong bought an electric vehicle (EV) in April 2025, he was worried about its range.

The BMW iX2 electric sport utility vehicle can travel up to 478km on a full charge — less than half the 980km range of the petrol-powered Audi A3 — that the 54-year-old used to own.

A roughly 190km road trip from Singapore to Muar in Johor with friends in March helped ease his “range anxiety” and gave him greater confidence in the EV’s capabilities.

Fong is among a growing number of motorists making the switch to electric cars in Singapore.

Latest Land Transport Authority (LTA) figures published on June 12 showed that electric cars accounted for 60.6 per cent of the 22,353 new cars registered in the first five months of 2026. This is up from 45 per cent at the end of 2025, and 1.7 per cent in 2022.

Accelerating this transition is a calibrated carrot-and-stick approach.

Besides offering tax incentives to encourage car buyers to go electric, the Government has been imposing heavier surcharges on more pollutive cars.

A cut to the early deregistration rebate, or the Preferential Additional Registration Fee rebate, which took effect from Feb 20, has tilted the balance further towards EVs.

The change has a larger impact on petrol-hybrid and traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) cars than on their electric counterparts, making EVs the more attractive financial option.

A RAPIDLY EXPANDING MARKET

Consumers now have a far wider range of EVs to choose from than before.

A decade ago, car owners looking to switch to EVs could pick only from models by BMW, BYD, Tesla and Nissan in Singapore.

One of the first EVs launched in Singapore was the Tesla Roadster in 2011, but the importer never managed to sell any.

In 2016, out of the 601,257 cars on the road, just 12 were electric.