Total Cost of Ownership and Willingness-to-Pay for Private Mobility in Singapore

This paper gives an overview of the costs for the usage of private conventional versus electric cars in Singapore. The focus is on the composition of the costs of purchasing and using a car in this city state. The purchase price is easily thrice that of a similar car in the European market due to the high Singaporean vehicle taxes. With the high purchase price, the influence of the operating costs on the total cost of ownership is comparatively low, especially for electric vehicles. Additionally, this work shows the results of a survey in which Singaporeans were asked about different mobility attributes. Time savings was found to be the most important attribute when travelling around in Singapore. Based on the important attributes, a second survey has been conducted focusing on the willingness-to-pay for each of these attributes. The initial results showed that the people accept an increased purchase price of electric vehicles if they are offered savings on the operating costs. However, the additional willingness-to-pay is lower than the calculated purchase price difference.