A basic commuter car costs over S180,000( US135,000) due to a compulsory 10-year quota license (COE/certificate of entitlement) that alone costs S$100,000+, plus registration taxes scaling up to 320% of the car's base value. Total running costs (tolls, parking, road tax) easily add S1,000–S2,000+ per month.
Singapore is so small though and cabs are cheap and I never needed a car. I can see why Waymo will be very attractive.
A lot of people get a car when they have kids as taking grab with a car seat can be unwieldy. Also, COE wasn’t always $100K, many people are still on legacy COE when it was $30-$50K
COE was around 30K in the first year of COVID. Not exceptionally long ago. We have a continental car we bought at the end of 2020 with a 41.5K COE; we paid less in total than what a base-model Corolla costs nowadays.
shell0x · · focus · HN ↗
Singapore is so small though and cabs are cheap and I never needed a car. I can see why Waymo will be very attractive.
vachina · · focus · HN ↗
shalmanese · · focus · HN ↗
eru · · focus · HN ↗
What vintage was that?
delta_p_delta_x · · focus · HN ↗
eru · · focus · HN ↗
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.