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A basic commuter car costs over S180,000( US135,000) due to a compulsory 10-year quota license (COE/certificate of entitlement) that alone costs S$100,000+, plu

• vachina 14d ago
  If you never needed a car in Singapore then why is the COE so expensive? COE price is determined from a bidding process.
  • shell0x 14d ago
    I said I never needed a car there :) I can get anywhere by cab in like < 30 mins so I never saw the need to have one. However there are plenty of ultra rich people living there and also many driving luxury cars. It's also a status symbol there(Credit card/Condo/Car).
    • eru 14d ago
      Condos are for the middle class. Landed property is the status symbol (but, alas, it doesn't start with a C.) Btw, the cab obviously need to bid for CoE as well.
      • ValentineC 14d ago
        In the 80s and 90s when the housing market was more immature, I believe condos and landed property were around the same price, and condos were seen as somewhat more prestigious because it came with private facilities.
        • eru 14d ago
          Probably. The classic 5 Cs are quite out of date in general: a credit card is no longer a status symbol, when anyone can get one.
          • yitchelle 14d ago
            Depends on the colour card, right?
            • ValentineC 12d ago
              Yeah, in Singapore, the cards to flex are DBS Insignia, UOB Reserve, Citi Ultima, and that black Amex.
  • jimmydef 14d ago
    The utility of a car in singapore is very different from other places. Yes, a car will get you faster from point A to point B in singapore when compared to public transport. But you can get a private hire car or a taxi which is just as fast and is probably much more convenient. For many people in Singapore, a car's real utility is to signal status. More often than not, this status gets you real-life benefits. Such as increased dating success.
    • fhe 14d ago
      interestingly enough though, car ownership, and even having a driver's license is increasingly less common among the young.
      • jimmydef 14d ago
        Yes, because when adjusted to car ownership costs, the young have a lower purchasing power when compared to the older generation at the same age back then.
        • eru 14d ago
          I'm not sure that's a good lens to look through: the total number of cars in Singapore is fixed, and ownership cost adjusts (via the CoE auction) to balance supply and demand. So there's no drop in total car ownership to explain: that one is held fixed. What we'd need to explain is why comparatively more older people and fewer younger people drive.
          • motionlessveloc 14d ago
            Singapore residents are not limited to one car. There's a lot of regional ultra rich in Singapore, and it's not unusual for them to have half a dozen or more cars, all of which count against the total cap.
          • jimmydef 14d ago
            The total number of cars is fixed. Singapore's population has exploded in the past 20 years, almost doubling due to immigration. Native birth rate has collapsed. Many relatively wealthy foreign individuals have moved to Singapore, disproportionately middle aged and above. These folks also compete in buying car quotas. They can also buy more than one car. Their demand is more inelastic. Younger folks, local or foreign born are priced out.
  • fhe 14d ago
    despite the convenience of a well-run public transport system and uber-like services, the ease and freedom of owning your own transport is still hard to beat, and evidently worth the ~75k dollar COE. it removes the walk from bus/subway stations under the tropical/sun, humidity; and the wait (typically 5-10min) of waiting for your uber/taxi driver to showup and enduring the uber car smell (often heavily scented for some reason and triggers my allergic reaction) and someone else's music. and once you have children a car is almost a must.
    • eru 14d ago
      Yes. And the Uber-like services and traditional taxis also need to bid for CoE. I never had a problem with the driver's music in Singapore: usually they just play the bland local radio, or you can ask them to turn it off. Smell: sometimes a problem when you get a smoker. I guess some try to mask that with heavy scents? For me the worst is that the local taxi uncles tend to pump the gas pedal. That's nausea inducing. About the wait for the cab: usually you wait in the mall or at home etc, where you can have shelter from the sun and aircon. Having your own car is convenient, especially with kids, since you can keep stuff in the car. But having to find parking all the time is also annoying.
  • shalmanese 14d ago
    A lot of people get a car when they have kids as taking grab with a car seat can be unwieldy. Also, COE wasn’t always $100K, many people are still on legacy COE when it was $30-$50K
    • shell0x 14d ago
      That's a good call-out actually. I haven't thought of people with kids.
      • zhivota 14d ago
        One note, taxis are exempt from car seat laws and you can book them on demand via grab or the taxi company apps. That's what we did, it's a slight risk but so is life.
        • red369 14d ago
          Are taxis exempt, but car-sharing like Grab not exempt? I have seen Grab drivers turn down taking a child without a car seat a few times.
          • eru 14d ago
            > Are taxis exempt, but car-sharing like Grab not exempt? Yes!
    • normie3000 14d ago
      Are car seats mandatory for children in taxis in Singapore?
      • immawizard 14d ago
        Only for the children you want to keep after car crash.
      • rossriley 14d ago
        For the official taxis they are not, but for ride hailing taxis like Grab/Gojek they are.
  • itemize123 14d ago
    it's easy to want one
  • thomasjoulin 14d ago
    in addition to all the other responses, owning a car in Singapore is also a status symbol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Cs_of_Singapore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Cs_of_Singapore
  • red369 14d ago
    ~$100,000 every 10 years is expensive, but I think even in a lot of countries with good public transport, there would be a large number of people who would consider paying $1,000 a month to be able to have a car if that was the only way to have one. It seems to me as though a lot families share a car quite widely too. Even in countries without an expensive on-road tax, people do often choose to pay more than $10,000 a year in depreciation cost, rather than the option of buying a car that has already gone through the early, rapid depreciation. People also choose to get a car loan, again increasing the cost. I'm fairly uninformed whether the interest on those is significant. Of course, the COE is in addition to depreciation and maintenance, and those are both also expensive in Singapore. Plus people buy the cars through loans. And, excluding everything I've said above, the cars themselves are very expensive to buy! As an example, a 2.0L e:HEV Honda Civic is US$195,000 including the COE, so approximately US$90,000 without it. Looking on the US Honda site, it looks like the same car is under US$33,000. There must some on-road taxes in the US, and difference in specs, but that's a big difference in price, in addition to the ~$100,000 COE. Even knowing they're expensive, there's something I still can't get over, seeing a 6-figure price across the windscreen of a base model (and knowing you don't get to take off any zeros when doing a currency conversion to what you're used to).
    • shell0x 14d ago
      https://www.iras.gov.sg/taxes/individual-income-tax/basics-of-individual-income-tax/tax-residency-and-tax-rates/individual-income-tax-rates https://www.iras.gov.sg/taxes/individual-income-tax/basics-o... If you're well paid expat, it might not be the worst as well. You save so much on income tax in Singapore, but consumption is expensive. I'm sure for many Singapore still comes out ahead cost wise.
      • eru 14d ago
        > You save so much on income tax in Singapore, but consumption is expensive. It depends on what you are consuming. Sins like driving, alcohol, smoking and gambling are expensive. But the daily essentials aren't all that expensive, especially eating out starts very low.
  • eru 14d ago
    One part: the people running the taxis and Grab also need to bid for slots. And if you have kids, being able to leave stuff in your car is pretty useful, so you might want to bid. Though I guess the main reason is: Singapore is rich, so that drives up the bidding.
  • raynr 14d ago
    The price is high because there is sustained demand. Hah! No but seriously. For a variety of reasons, owning a car in Singapore is a step change in QoL. Infrastructure reasons: - abundant parking at destinations (e.g. malls), home (HDB flats, condominiums) due to fairly generous car park lot mandates. IIRC, HDBs, where 85% of Singaporeans live, have until fairly recently had a 1:1 unit:lot ratio. Similarly for condominiums. A lot of these are progressively being scaled down especially near train stations, but buildings and giant multi storey parking lots are fixed infrastructure that will be around for decades. Abundant parking will be available for decades still. - roads are wide and well maintained and well connected. The experience: - because the number of cars on the road are controlled through the COE system, the experience of driving is good. We get slow traffic but it is extremely rare that we get the kind of multi-hour jams that other countries experience. - the door-to-door experience saves tons of time. In public transport, I walk (7m), wait for the train (3m), sit on the train (36m), get out at the interchange and walk to another platform (2m), wait for the train (2m), sit on the train (12m), exit and walk to my destination (11m). Total time: 1h14m. In a car, I walk to my car (2m), drive to my destination (35m), walk from the car park to my destination (1m). Total time: 38m. x2 for the return trip, and the car saves you a whole hour a day. - the public transport experience is not so good if you have a family or are disabled. Don't even mention cyclists, culturally we spit on them here. The status: - it's true, the car is a status symbol. You don't know it until you get into conversations where driving a "mere BMW" as opposed to a mercedes is looked down on, or when someone mentions that driving a hatch is "not appropriate" (to station). Sedans are still popular here because they're "executive". Yes, these are all real conversation points I've been in. Combine all of the above and owning a car in Singapore means you save tons of time, is technically "affordable" after loans, and you get to feel like you made it. So there's huge pressure to get a car. And once you're hooked, it is very difficult to give it up. Then you have other reasons, like Taxis and Grab compete with individuals for the COE, and parents who "made it" in the boom years buying cars for their kids, and foreign money coming in. But I don't know how big these effects are.
    • zdc1 14d ago
      Many US/UK/overseas folks won't really understand Singapore's roads because they are such a foreign system. "Traffic" doesn't exist in the western sense of the word there. So because of size, traffic, and all-in vehicle costs, rideshare apps will always be cheaper than owning a car in Singapore. OTOH, SG's public transport is world class, but could be much better if they gave buses more priority over cars. The door to door experience of buses is already fantastic: they are cheap, accessible (no long walks to platform like the MRT), timely, and well connected. However they are crowded (need more buses) and bus lanes aren't a thing over there. It's a weird place where they do an amazing job at urban planning but still give as much space to roads as to housing because their richest and most powerful also tend to enjoy driving. And then there's the culture. Drivers are way too entitled in Singapore. Many have no interest in giving way to pedestrians, and simply aren't interested in "sharing" the road. I'm keen to see less drivers there. It will improve things greatly.
• merek 14d ago
  > cabs are cheap Everyone says that but I've had the opposite experience, possibly due to my location (near Orchard Rd). Can easily pay $15 to essentially go around the corner.
  • Shank 14d ago
    > Can easily pay $15 to essentially go around the corner. Would it not be better to simply walk if the distance is essentially around the corner?
    • VanillaCafe 14d ago
      It's called a lower bound.
    • deleted 14d ago
      [deleted]
    • adt 14d ago
      Ever tried walking around the corner when it's 35C (95F) and 90% humidity?
      • mathisfun123 14d ago
        Yes? All the time in South Florida.
        • hdgvhicv 14d ago
          Famously Americans walk everywhere.
      • eru 14d ago
        Humidity is usually between 60% to 70%. Where do you get your 90% figure from?
        • hdgvhicv 14d ago
          My next trip to singapore is the end of next week. I’m staying a mile from the office, Apple predicts it’s 89% at 0730 but will drop to 75% during the day, and back upto 80% after dinner.