The programme to put electric vehicles (EVs) on Singapore roads will pass a milestone next year, when the first lot of 26 charging stations are installed.
German firm Bosch has been appointed to set up the network of these stations, with the first expected up and running by March, said the inter-agency task force in charge the EV test-bed programme yesterday.
By the end of next year, 63 stations will be up. They will charge the battery-powered Mitsubishi i-MiEVs, due to be brought in for testing at that time.
The task force, comprising officials from the Land Transport Authority (LTA), the Energy Market Authority (EMA) and a slew of ministries and agencies, is now actively encouraging owners of corporate fleets to consider getting the EVs for the trial. Private car owners are not included in this test phase.
Said LTA chief executive Chew Hock Yong: ‘We look forward to the strong support of the business community in Singapore for this test bed.’
To fan the take-up rate, the tax holiday for buyers of the EVs has been extended to six years, up from two. Companies taking part in the test will be exempted from paying for certificates of entitlement, additional registration fees, road taxes and excise duties; with these reliefs, the price tag of a Mitsubishi i-MiEV will come down to $90,000 from $200,000.
The EMA said the purchase of the first batch of EVs is yet to be finalised. They have received several applications to buy the vehicles from companies like Smart Car Rental and GP Batteries.
Bosch will work with the organisations buying the EVs to determine where the charging stations will be set up.
Nearly all the 26 stations will be of the ‘normal’ variety, meaning cars will have to be plugged in for up to eight hours for a full charge. Only one station will be a quick-charging one, which can charge a car in just 45 minutes.
With more stations ready by the end of next year, there will be three quick-charge stations. The charging stations look like slimmer versions of petrol pumps, except they dispense electricity instead of fuel.
The other thing to be decided is how much each top-up of electricity will cost.
SingTel will be in on the experiment as well, as the provider of the telephone-based booking system to be used by EV drivers in the future. The system will allow drivers to use an application on their smartphones to book a charging station.
Bosch beat out 10 other companies to clinch the deal. The authorities had received bids ranging from $988,600 to $11.07 million.
But the task force said in its statement yesterday that other players could subsequently be allowed to set up similar facilities to be used on a commercial basis: ‘The charging infrastructure will be scaled up over time, to match the take-up rate of EVs in Singapore.’
The stations are an important part of the multi-million-dollar project to test the efficiency of electric vehicles here.
Green experts yesterday welcomed the news about the setting-up of the charging stations. Mr Eugene Tay, who runs green resources website Low-Carbon Singapore, called for more data to be gathered on the performance of EVs here.
Precious little data is now available on how these vehicles will perform in Singapore’s hot and humid climate.
‘We would get to see how the cars run, how long it actually takes to charge, and how the feedback system will work,’ he said.
This was a reference to the expectation that in the long run, EVs will be able to sell back the excess power in their batteries to the national electricity grid.
