High COE prices have driven some consumers to turn to renting and ride-hailing as well, observers said. Read more at straitstimes.com.
SINGAPORE - The number of private-hire cars has increased by 11.3 per cent over the last 12 months to 76,686 in June, as operators grew their fleets to meet rising demand for ride-hailing services from returning tourists.
Singapore University of Social Sciences associate professor of economics Walter Theseira said: “The private-hire car population had shrunk due to lack of demand during Covid-19, and the surge in demand after the pandemic has caught the players by surprise. So the fleets are slowly rebounding.” In contrast, Mr Nicholas Wong, general manager of Honda agent Kah Motor, expects there will be even more private-hire cars to come, as there is still “plenty of latent demand” from car-sharing operators competing for market dominance.BlueSG planning to add up to 500 new Opel Corsa-e hatchbacks to its fleet.Based on vehicle population data, there were 73 Opel electric cars as at end-2022. In the first six months of 2023, there were 90 registrations of electric hatchbacks from the German brand.
In total, there were 13,002 COEs used to register cars in the first six months of 2023, down 20.9 per cent from 16,440 in the same period in 2022.Private-hire car population remains stable; less than 3% of COEs secured went to foreigners Industry insiders said an area of concern is that a private-hire car can be converted to a normal private car without restraint, which means fleet owners can simply sell their private-hire cars if there are no hirers. It is not unheard of for heavily used private-hire cars to be spruced up and passed on to unsuspecting private car buyers, they said.
Since 2012, taxi operators do not bid for COEs. They pay the premium determined by the COE tender exercise, and the number of COEs available to them is tied to taxi availability standards instead. This means taxi companies do not exert pressure on COE premiums when they need to expand their fleet.
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