American EV maker has put 203 cars on the road making a third of all EVs sold in the first eight months of 2021, second place EV brand is a shock too

SINGAPORE – The Lion City is no longer an unfriendly place for electric vehicles (EVs), especially Teslas. The American EV brand has registered 203 cars here from January to August this year, and is very likely the top-selling brand when it comes to electric cars.

Granted there are currently no other carmakers that make only EVs here — Volvo’s purely electric offshoot Polestar will debut here in November — yet EVs are no longer an uncommon sight here with almost every major carmaker selling a battery-electric vehicle these days as our Best Of Mainstream EVs guide shows.

Tesla began putting its official cars on the road only in late July, and hit full swing in August, with a total of 165 cars registered in that month alone. Prior to this, the majority of Tesla registrations were made up of parallel imports.

In 2021, a total of 638 electric cars have been registered, taking the EV passenger car population from 1,217 cars at the end of 2020, to 1,855 cars at the end of August 2021.

With its 203 units, Tesla thus made up 31.8 percent of all EVs registered here in 2021 making it almost certainly the top seller of EVs here. The small amount of uncertainty comes from the way the LTA reports car registrations, with hybrids, plug-in hybrids and mild hybrids lumped together with electric cars under ‘Others’.

Because of that, and the fact that brands no longer report individual car model sales, we can’t say for sure that for example, BMW’s 633 ‘Others’ registered consists of 304 BMW iX3s.

But that’s not very likely, so we are quite certain that Tesla is number one when it comes to EVs, with the second-place EV brand being MG.

The Chinese-backed UK brand doesn’t sell hybrids, so all of its 101 ‘Others’ registered here this year are EVs, making it the runner-up when it comes to EVs here.  MG’s ZS EV (below) is excellent for the money it asks, while the new MG 5 wagon has seen adoption into taxi and hire-car fleets.

Tesla’s sales are not a surprise. As our analysis on car sales and trends showed, electric and hybrids are roaring forward at a huge pace.

Secondly, Tesla has very competitive pricing. We expect the vast majority of Teslas sold to be its entry-level sedan, the Model 3, which at S$113k without COE, is still one of the least expensive luxury EVs around.

But Tesla has not been without its faults – we recommend against using its Autopilot driving assist system for now, since it’s been implicated by the US NHTSA in multiple accidents to date.

Tesla Singapore Timeline

– February 2021 : Official pricing and orders start for its first model for Singapore, the Model 3 sedan

– July 19, 2021: Unveiled its first Superchargers at Ion Orchard

– July 29, 2021: Setup a service centre and made its first deliveries to customers

– July 30, 2021: New showroom opens

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