We are making rapid progress to promote the use of Electric Vehicles (EV), however many taxi drivers are hesitant to make the switch despite interest in adopting the greener energy.
The current situation is a chicken and egg, do we build more charging infrastructure now or there must be enough EV on the road for the charging stations to be built? in my opinion, I would say Charging station has to be built first in order to push the adoption of EV in Singapore. Singapore has already increased its EV adoption efforts, with plans to deploy some 60,000 charging spots by the end of the 2030
In general EV taxi is able to help to lower fuel, repair and maintenance cost. However, with the current lack of charging stations, it is tough for the Taxi drivers to take up the option for fear of not able to charge it conveniently. other challenges the taxi drivers face are, the charging station is too far off or occupied by someone else and has to wait.
Electric taxi is not new, the now defunct HDT taxi had their fleet of Electric taxi with fixed salary for the drivers on the Road. There will be no way back for internal combustion engine automobiles as Singapore plans to eliminate their use by the year 2040. It will just be a matter of time the Charging Infrastructure will catch up and EV adoption will pick up.
