'Give cash incentives to boost green car sales'

Manufacturers say this will encourage drivers to make switch
Jessica Cheam Straits Times 3 Nov 10;

LEADING car manufacturers yesterday urged governments, particularly those in Asia, to play a key role in kick-starting the electric vehicle (EV) revolution.

This means giving monetary incentives to encourage consumers to buy these green cars rather than traditional ones that run on fossil fuels.

When the adoption of such vehicles becomes widespread, the incentives can be removed and costs of EVs would have decreased too, said experts at a panel discussion on the opening day of the Clean Energy Expo Asia.

EVs are considered more environmentally friendly as their greenhouse gas emissions are lower, while also addressing the issue of over-dependence on fossil fuels.

French car maker Renault's Asean and Japan area operations manager Arnaud Mourgue said existing markets, such as Singapore's, need to provide significant incentives at the start for EVs to take off.

In Singapore, for example, an EV could be sold to a consumer by next year for about $70,000 to $80,000 - comparable to the price for a conventional mass market car, said Mr Mourgue.

But that is dependent on the authorities relaxing the current tax regime, which would now make an EV cost nearly $200,000 to the average consumer.

Renault is in talks with the Energy Market Authority (EMA) and the Land Transport Authority (LTA) to bring in a fleet of these cars by next year for Singapore's EV pilot project.

Under a current government programme, the Transport Technology Innovation and Development Scheme (Tides), taxes are waived for electric cars, but only for companies and organisations. Private car owners are not included in this test phase.

The LTA has a Green Vehicle Rebate scheme - set up in 2001 - which encourages the take-up of green vehicles. The scheme, which offers a rebate of up to 40 per cent of a car's Open Market Value, will run its course by the end of next year. The authority said yesterday it will review the scheme when the time comes.

But industry experts say more can be done, like allowing schemes similar to Tides to be made available to consumers to get things moving.

'Incentives are a necessity to reach a certain volume to get the economies of scale. After a few years, we won't need those incentives. Infrastructure of the network, mindset of our customers and production efficiency will be there,' said Mr Mourgue.

Managing director David Chou of EV World, which converts existing cars into EVs, agreed.

'Such incentives will help win the consumer over to EVs, and we will see more EVs on the road. Technology improvement will also constantly be bringing the costs down,' he added.