An excellent speech by Minister Chee and SMS Khor just now - particularly liked the framing of lives, livelihoods and liveability. Many interesting and exciting initiatives and news were also announced, but amidst all these news lie several titbits on Electric Vehicles. Let me try to recap (any mistakes are all mine!) -
(1) More people are buying electric cars. EV sales accounted for 18% of total car sales, a year-on-year increase of 50%. In the first 2 months of this year - EV sales have accounted for 30% of total car sales. Such numbers puts us amongst the leading countries in terms of EV car sales.
(2) The EV charging network continues to expand. 1 our of 3 HDB carparks now have EV charging points - I believe its at least 3 charging points (some larger ones have 6 or more) per carpark. Kudos to my friends at EV-Electric (EVe) Charging Pte Ltd for the impressive work and progress! It will be interesting to see the total number of publicly accessible EV charging points once the grace period for EV charger registrations are closed - but I'm confident the ratio of cars to charging points will likely be low (i.e. below 1 point to 3-4 vehicles).
(3) Fast charging network. I'm glad to hear that we will also be adding on to private sector efforts to develop a fast charging network in our public carparks - over 100 charging points across 60 town and neighbourhood centre carparks. I think it's a good move - these are likely to be the places where we will see a higher concentration of those that may need a fast charge. Moving forward, I'm also hoping to see if this can be expanded further - beyond serving such needs, it also helps to act as a buffer against a sudden, sustained uptake in EV ownership.
(4) EV etiquette - Happy to hear that good proactive steps are being taken with the upcoming publication of a charging guide. Other good suggestions were mentioned that are also being studied - lot hogging charges, lot reservations etc.. We should press on in this regard - its always best to shape behaviour for new activities early!
What's next on the horizon on EVs in the coming year? I have a few ideas:
(1) Electrical Infrastructure upgrades - Given the limited electrical capacity available per carpark, the timely upgrade of such electrical infrastructure will be necessary. Of course, this must be balanced against cost - so the extent of upgrading will need to be carefully calibrated, and we should also explore innovative ways to upgrade the infrastructure in a cost-effective manner such as dynamic load management.
(2) Charging point innovation - Beyond charging points, it would also be timely to start considering other methods of charging, such as battery swapping (for heavy vehicles and motorcycles), and also RFID plug-in charging for cars (which might transform the charging landscape again).
All in all - the future is electrifying!
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