SINGAPORE - Of the 1.4 million Singaporean and permanent resident households here in 2022, 472,000 owned cars. This is up from 459,000 car-owning resident households in 2012, Acting Minister for Transport Chee Hong Tat said on Thursday.
Addressing misinterpretations of his earlier comments in Parliament that are circulating online, Mr Chee said in a Facebook post that on the whole, the share of car-owning resident households fell from about 40 per cent in 2012 to around 34 per cent in 2022 because of an increase in the number of resident households over the decade.
The number of resident households climbed from 1.15 million in 2012 to 1.4 million in 2022, according to data that Mr Chee released.
Speaking in Parliament on Nov 6 about certificate of entitlement (COE) prices, Mr Chee said the percentage of car-owning resident households had fallen from 40 per cent in 2013 to about one-third in recent years.
“Some people have incorrectly inferred that this means there are now fewer resident households who own cars,” he clarified on Thursday.
Based on The Straits Times’ calculations, the data also shows that there were more resident households that did not own cars in 2022 (928,000) than in 2012 (693,000).
Separately, Mr Chee stated again that private-hire cars contribute to overall demand for COEs, which give one the right to own and use a vehicle in Singapore.
In the first three quarters of 2023, car-leasing firms won about 21 per cent of Category A COE quota and 23 per cent of Category B quota. These firms would then register these vehicles as private-hire cars, he said.
Category A is for smaller, less powerful cars and electric vehicles (EVs), while Category B is for larger, more powerful cars and EVs.
Overall, however, local individual buyers are still the main contributors to COE demand, Mr Chee said.
On the issue of creating a separate COE category for private-hire cars, he said again that there would be trade-offs with a move like that, such as requiring some of the existing quota from Categories A and B to be reallocated to this new category.
“As private-hire car demand is still evolving and varies from quarter to quarter, it is difficult to ascertain what is the exact quota required to meet the needs of drivers and commuters,” he said.
If too many certificates are taken from the existing car COE categories, the supply in those categories would fall and premiums could rise further, he said.
Yet, if the authorities do not move enough quota to the new category, private-hire car drivers will have to contend with inadequate vehicles to rent, and commuters could be hit by supply shortages and price hikes.
Mr Chee repeated his statement that the authorities will ensure a continued rise in the supply of COEs for cars and commercial vehicles in 2024 till supply peaks in 2026 and 2027. This entails bringing forward COEs that are guaranteed to expire in future peak supply years to fill the present supply troughs.
“I hope the increase in supply will give potential car buyers greater assurance that there is no need to rush into the market now,” he said.
In the last COE tender exercise that ended on Nov 8, prices fell across all five categories, ending a record-breaking streak of high premiums in Category B and the Open category, which ends up largely for bigger cars.
