Singapore (CU)_ Singapore announced last year that the drive to encourage the usage of electric vehicles (EV) would begin in early 2021. During his Budget 2021 speech yesterday, the PM Heng Swee Keat detailed about the steps that government will take to encourage customers to make a transition to EVs. However, some objectives have been updated or improved. It was announced last year that by 2030, the EV charging infrastructure will be extended from 1,600 points to 28,000 throughout the island. But the improvised plan says that this will now be further doubled to 60,000 EV charging points in public car parks and private premises by 2030.
The government of Singapore has already announced its plan to ban ICE vehicles and make all vehicles run on renewable energy by 2040. Hence, the government has allocated S$30 million for measures related to electric vehicles for the next five years. This entails steps to enhance the charging facilities at private premises. PM Heng said that the road tax bands will also be updated such that a mass-market electric vehicle will have an equivalent road tax as that of internal combustion engine road tax.
As announced in the last Budget, rebates from the EV Early Adoption Incentive (EEAI) started on January 1 and will be in effect until December 31, 2023. This allows full-electric vehicle purchasers to earn a discount of up to 45% off the additional registration fee (ARF) of the vehicle, capped at S$20,000 (RM60,780). The ARF is a tax that is charged during a vehicle registration and is determined on the basis of a percentage of the cost of the Open Market Value (OMV) of a vehicle imported into the country.
