The government has been too slow in pushing for greener land transport
The government recently announced that it would make S$20 million available for a trial programme to encourage the adoption of electric vehicles on the roads beginning in 2010. It is a welcome decision.
Such vehicles will be substantially more environmentally friendly than the current petrol-based ones, and they should be well suited for the needs of many Singaporeans given the country’s small size.
Even so, it is likely that the day of widespread usage of the electric car is still very far off, and not only because major car makers have not begun to mass produce these cars on the scale of conventional ones. It is due more to the government not having shown that it is serious about pursuing greener technology in land transport.
The slow adoption of vehicles fuelled by compressed natural gas (CNG) provides a good example. CNG vehicles have clear cost and environmental advantages. In Singapore, the level of particulate matter in the air is almost twice that set by the World Health Organisation and its per capita carbon dioxide emissions – of which the transport sector contributes nearly a fifth – is one of the highest in the developed world.
CNG vehicles emit on average about 15% less greenhouse gases than petrol-fuelled ones even after taking account that the fuel consumption of CNG vehicles are relatively higher than petrol ones, as well as almost no particulate emissions.
Yet despite some government subsidies for CNG cars and the huge fuel price advantage that CNG enjoyed over petrol in the last two years, by 2008 there were only about 500 such cars on the roads (nearly half of which were taxis) or 0.1% of the car population.
One factor was that government subsidies were not large enough to blunt the incentives for buying conventional petrol-fuelled cars – the government was also reluctant to raise taxes on petrol cars for fear of a political backlash – but the key factor is a striking lack of supporting infrastructure. Singapore had all of one CNG-refuelling station before a second one opened in 2008.
There has been similarly slow-uptake in the public transport sector as well. CNG-fuelled buses are widely used in other cities, even some much less developed than Singapore such as New Delhi, but the leading bus operator here had only 12 CNG buses in a fleet of nearly 3,000 in 2008. The number of CNG taxis is increasing, but it is still a small number – roughly 1% in a fleet of more than 20,000.
It is quite likely that the adoption of CNG vehicles will continue to be slow, largely because the government will not commit resources to pushing for it. It has left the development of refuelling infrastructure to private operators, which has naturally been too cautious in building such facilities for fear that they will encounter a lack of demand.
The government has also not pushed public transport operators hard enough to switch to CNG vehicles or provided the subsidies to encourage them to do so, even though as part owner of these firms it has considerable leverage over them.
Electric vehicles will similarly require substantial public investment in order to get going, though installing electrical charging points is cheaper than building CNG-fuelling stations. Still, electric vehicles are disadvantaged by being considerably more expensive than CNG ones – conventional vehicles can be cheaply converted to run on CNG – and are some way from being mass-produced.
The government’s reticence about putting more money into making land transport greener is also unlikely to improve matters anytime soon.
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why would they spend money to make their already ‘world-class’ greener? they’d rather the transport companies make more profit for them, i think.
Government subsidy without aggressive marketing of CNG cars will not lead to substantial uptake of CNG vehicles. Plus there will always be this lingering thought on whether CNG refilling infrastructure will stay for good. Unless the public transport sector commits itself to CNG, I think the public will continue to remain skeptical on adopting CNG vehicles.
If the overriding objective is to reduce carbon emission, converting petrol-driven cars to CNG or EV are but just 2 approaches in a wide array of technology choices. None has proven to be the panacea. EV’s have relatively short ranges and long time-to-charge. May not be the most effective, especially if one considers how the electricity is generated (i.e. the ‘well-to-wheel’ carbon footprint).
What is needed is a more radical way of moving people. More pervasive and efficient mass transport systems, for e.g. fully-dedicated bus lanes, electric trams on all major trunk roads, are probably better bets.
Are the Electricity Generators sold to Foreigners liao? 3 of them?
So, our future electrical bills any effect?
Last time already got solar power invented by foreigners, as usual.
CNG also foreign.
Electric Car = foreign invented
Power plants = foreign technology
Turbines = foreign technology
Batteries = foreign technology
Whatever = ……??
… is well suited for full electrical transport system.
Gahmen talks about knowledge based economy. We have a large number of jobless ex-unemployed electrical electronics engineers (both locals and imports) especially during this downturn.
Many were produced in NTU in the last decades following the electronics manufacturing boom, but in the decade following the millennium, were forced out due to electronics MNC relocating to cheaper third world countries. Many of these engineers retrained to other sectors, or join the “quick rich schemes” as real estate agents, insurance agents and in the financial sectors. It’s a pity the bulk of knowledge were wasted, when we could be the pioneering research country in green technologies.
3) Justmetalking ///efficient mass transport system are probably better bets.///
Agree. City states and private cars are incompatible
I think it is myopic to consider the green movement as an attempt to reduce carbon emission. The strategic goal of greening the transport sector goes beyond preventing global warming:
1) Reduce the need for consumption of fuel
1) Improve the energy efficiency of the economy
2) Reduce unnecessary use of energy-intensive transport
It seems to be a catch-22 problem for the CNG-vehicles industry in Singapore: with low numbers of CNG vehicles, there will be very few supporting infrastructure like refuelling stations; and if there are so few infrastructure, Singaporeans will hesitate to purchase a CNG vehicle.
In a way, it does make sense for the drivers, even an environmentally-conscious one. If I need to drive 10 km out of the way just to refuel my car, is it anymore environmentally friendly to buy a CNG car?
Your editorial on Electric dreams
Having followed the electric car (EV) development since the 90″s, I am no where close to believing that it is a serious option for us. A major breakthrough announced recently is rapid recharging and that is years away from commercialization. Not a single enterprise has developed and sold an EV in sufficient quantity to be economically viable despite California’s regulation in the 90″s mandating minimum sales by early 2000 – it was abandoned later.
The EV has a short range and costly battery pack and even if recharging were to take minutes instead of hours, the likelihood of a number of them running out of power in our heavy traffic is high. Our roads cannot tolerate many vehicle breakdowns. The high capital costs will also be a deterrent for the ordinary folks.
If local emission is a serious problem, the EV is a solution as it does not emit any unhealthy gases. But the EV does not help the global environment unless the electricity used is made from a clean and green energy source. Singapore does not suffer from a local emission problem that conventional technology cannot solve economically. Also most of our electricity are generated from piped gases from neighboring sources and EV will increase our dependence on gas which raises supply security issue until more expensive LNG supply are brought in.
Can we ride on the EV bandwagon if sufficient breakthrough makes it a success? Unlikely as a manufacturer or even a supplier of major big components such as the battery but perhaps in some special high tech and difficult-to-manufacture components or control systems. And that only if we position ourselves for them by fostering R&D in these areas. We can also make small bets on EV by gradually incorporating into our infrastructure simple features that make future introduction of EV more convenient and less costly. For example – incorporate a few metered charging places for EV in the electricity network of future condos. These electrical points can be used for other purposes too.
Singapore is properly a suitable place for trials but let us cooperate with business by facilitating their trials rather than put up public money. Our money is better spent on positioning ourselves in developing specific areas where we can compete.