Singapore is so small though and cabs are cheap and I never needed a car. I can see why Waymo will be very attractive.
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.
Would it not be better to simply walk if the distance is essentially around the corner?
I'm hesitating to judge someone taking a ride-share around the corner. Among many other reasons, I can imagine scenarios where someone would think it worth paying to not arrive a sweaty mess.
I’ve been travelling to singapore for the last 15 years, my gut view is cabs are far more expensive today than they were 10 years ago even after adjusting for inflation. Maybe it’s just incorrect memories - rates don’t seem to have increased that much.
Btw, the cab obviously need to bid for CoE as well.
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.
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.
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.
Btw, I don't think you need the assumption that the rich people's car demand is inelastic.
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.
Yes!
They are less strict for the latter.
What vintage was that?
Covid was special. We also rented a shop house at the height of Covid (late 2020) and paid as much per square metre as we previously had paid for HDB.
Also keep in mind that when lots of CoEs expire at the same time, you'll also have more demand in the market from those people whose CoE just expired, but who still want a car.
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).
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.
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.
Sorry, could you please explain how car loans increase the cost?
> 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!
In a sense, all these other costs don't really matter: if they increased (or dropped) by a dollar, in equilibrium the winning CoE bid would drop (respectively increase) by a dollar.
A 10 percent rate on a 40k loan for a 60k mid-range SUV over 5 years is roughly 10k more in costs to the buyer. THis is the average purchase price/loan term in the US for new cars, at least.
So while a 10k increase in price due to the loan isn't comparable to a 3-6x in price in Singapore, the infinitely higher amount of consumers in US caught in this trap is directly going into the selling agent's pocket. At least in SGP, that COE entitlement cost goes to "the state".
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.
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.
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.