Minister for Environment and Water Resources Masagos Zulkifli has announced on Wednesday (8 March) at Committee of Supply Debate for his Ministry that National Environment Agency (NEA) will introduce the Vehicular Emissions Scheme (VES) to replace the Carbon Emissions-Based Vehicle Scheme (CEVS) for all new cars, taxis and newly imported used cars with effect from 1 January 2018.
In a joint release by NEA and Land Transport Authority, they stated that in addition to the carbon dioxide (CO2) criterion in the existing CEVS, the VES will cover 4 other pollutants – hydrocarbons (HC), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter (PM).
The rebates and surcharges for the respective VES bands are as below:
According to the Agency, the VES rebate or surcharge for a car or taxi will be determined by its worst-performing pollutant. This is to encourage buyers to choose models that have lower emissions across all criteria and are cleaner overall, so as to further improve ambient air quality and thereby improve public health.
Similar to the existing CEVS, LTA noted that the rebate and surcharge for taxis under the VES will be 50 percent higher to better encourage taxi companies to adopt lower emission models for their fleets, as taxis generally clock higher mileage than cars.
“To account for the CO2 emissions produced by electricity generation from fossil fuels, an emission factor will be applied to the electricity consumption of electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) as measured under the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Regulation No.101 test procedures,” it said.
LTA stressed that the VES will be applicable for all cars and taxis registered from 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2019, adding that the scheme will be reviewed regularly and take into consideration its impact on motorists’ purchasing decisions, technological advances in vehicles and the progress of Singapore’s overall mitigation efforts on climate change and air pollution.
CEVS was introduced in 2013 to encourage the purchase of low carbon emission vehicles and it was revised in 2015. The average CO2 emissions of new cars and taxis have decreased by 15 per cent since the start of CEVS.
The existing CEVS, which is due to expire on 30 June 2017, will be extended to 31 December 2017 to give the vehicle dealers more time to prepare for the new scheme and import cleaner vehicle models.
To help potential vehicle buyers make informed decisions, LTA noted that fuel economy labels will be re-designed to include information on each vehicle’s VES band. The new label will need to be affixed on showroom cars displayed for sale when the VES is implemented from 1 January 2018.
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