SINGAPORE: Owning a car in the most expensive city in the world just got more expensive—again. The price of the Certificate of Entitlement (COE), the permit needed to own and operate a vehicle for 10 years, has now risen to S$150,001 for Category B vehicles that are larger and more powerful than others.
Oct 18 (Wednesday) marked the first time that premiums for Category B vehicles breached the S$150,000 mark. Premiums for all but one of the categories went up in the second bidding exercise for this month. COEs for light cars, Category A, went from S$104,000 to S$106,000. For motorcycles (Category D), premiums went up from S$10,856 to S$11,201. For the Open Category (E), which covers all vehicles except motorcycles, premiums rose from S$152,000 to S$158,004.
Only for Category C commercial vehicles (goods vehicles and busses) have premiums gone down. Earlier this month, premiums were at S$85,900, which dropped only slightly and are now at S$84,790.
There are 2,023 COEs currently available, and 2,697 bids have been placed. The Land Transport Authority had announced earlier that 300 more COEs for Category A vehicles (1,600cc and below with horsepower not exceeding 130bhp) would be reallocated this month.
This means that there is a 24 per cent increase in the quota for light vehicles for October, with an additional 150 COEs made available in each of the two biddings. In November, the quota for COE will rise by 13 per cent for a three-month period ending in January 2024. Categories A and C will see the biggest increases. LTA said on Oct 13 that there will be a total of 12,774 COEs available during this period.
Earlier this month, Singapore made headlines across the globe after the premium for a Category E COE breached S$150,000 for the first time. This led to a Reuters article pointing out that the bid for a COE in Singapore costs as much as four Toyota Camry Hybrids in the United States.
One reason for the surge in the price of a COE, which was implemented to control the number of cars in land-scarce Singapore, is a post-Covid-19 boom in car ownership, Reuters adds. A COE costs four times as much as it did in 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 lockdown that saw very little activity in the city-state. During that time, a COE could be obtained for as little as S$30,000.
“The skyrocketing price puts cars firmly out of reach of most middle-class Singaporeans, putting a dent in what sociologist Tan Ern Ser said was the ‘Singapore Dream’ of upward social mobility – having cash, a condominium and a car,” noted Reuters’ Xinghui Kok on Oct 4, pointing out that the median yearly household salary is S$121,188.
/TISG
You can buy 4 Toyotas in the US for the price of a COE in SG