Registration of new diesel cars and taxis to end in 2025

SINGAPORE: The registration of new diesel cars and taxis in Singapore will cease from 2025, Minister for Transport Ong Ye Kung announced on Thursday (Mar 4). 

This is part of efforts to "further pave the way for greener vehicles", said Mr Ong. 

"As we know, diesel cars emit PM2.5 (particulate matter) and are even more pollutive (than petrol vehicles)," he said. 

While diesel vehicles made up about 85 per cent of Singapore's taxi fleet five years ago, their numbers have dropped in recent years and they now comprise about 40 per cent of the country's 15,888 taxis.  

As of January, there are 18,081 diesel cars on the roads here, making up about 2.8 per cent of Singapore's car population, according to figures from the Land Transport Authority.

Mr Ong noted that the previously announced target was to phase out internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and have all vehicles run on cleaner energy by 2040.  

"To realise this vision, and given that COEs (certificates of entitlement) for cars last for 10 years, we will require from 2030 all new car and taxi registrations to be of cleaner-energy models," said Mr Ong. 

“They can be electric, hybrid, hydrogen fuel cell cars, et cetera. As these technologies are evolving rapidly, we will monitor developments closely, and finalise the definition of registrable models well before 2030,” he added. 

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There is a net carbon abatement by switching from ICE to electric vehicles, even if the electricity is generated by fossil fuels, Mr Ong said. He noted that in Singapore - where power is largely generated from natural gas - the net carbon savings from switching to EVs would be about 50 per cent.

“Today, vehicles on the whole emit about 6.4 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent per year. If the subset of light vehicles all ran on electricity, the total net carbon abatement would be about 1.5 to two million tonnes per year,” he said. 

This translates into a “not insignificant” abatement of about 4 per cent of Singapore’s total national emissions, he noted. 

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“In many countries, inter-city driving is common, which causes anxiety amongst EV users towards battery depletion. But with our urban environment, Singapore is quite ideal as a test-bed for the rapid adoption of EVs,” said Mr Ong.

“We can be at the forefront of this technology, to advance this significant thrust of the Singapore Green Plan.”