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Comment by jmiserez | Hacker News Reader

While Singapore public transport is good and taxis are reliable, they also make it very expensive for people to own a car, and the total number is restricted.

See here for numbers: https://dollarsandsense.sg/complete-guide-buying-car-singapo...

Their example car worth 50'000S$ (~36'000 USD) will end up costing 160'000S$ (116'000 USD) total.

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Still cheaper than most Scandinavian countries!

What on earth do you mean with that? Seems to be around 40k USD in Sweden, and I've never before heard of any rumor that cars would be an unaffordable luxury in Scandinavia.

How much would, say a new Audi A4, cost you in Sweden?

Singapore is expensive because of the additional taxes that get added on to the base price. From what people (on HN in fact) have told me most Scandinavian countries levy significant extra taxes on car purchases.

So the $40k car might actually only be $15 to 20k in other countries such as Germany and Belgium?

But neither of those ranges are near the $160k in Singapore.

Starting prices for a Volvo V60, in euros:

The Netherlands: 36,500 Belgium: 35,000 Germany: 37,500 Sweden: 31,000

These may not be exactly comparable feature-wise, but those extra taxes don't seem to have a big impact.

Hint: Scandinavia is not a country. Cars are cheap in Sweden compared with Denmark, for instance.

As other people are mentioning it depends what country in Scandinavia. Sweden is not super expensive. Norway is very expensive but on the other hand they have excellent subsidies for electric cars: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/jul/02/norway-electri...

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