Car cost breakdown

What a car really costs in Singapore

Every one of the 268 models registered in Singapore in August 2026, with the whole tax stack LTA publishes: what the car was actually worth on import, each tax and rebate applied to it, the COE, and what the showroom asks on top. On a typical car, about 82% of the on-road cost is tax and COE rather than the car itself. Pick any models below to compare them side by side.

Why so many electric cars make exactly 110 kW. Category A COE is limited to 110 kW for an electric car, and the data shows a clean cliff at that line: 48 of the 119 electric models are rated between 99 and 110 kW, and the least powerful Category B model jumps straight to 150 kW. Nothing at all is sold in between.

What these figures mean

Singapore stacks five separate taxes and rebates onto a car's import value before a COE is even added, and the terms are not self-explanatory. Here is each one in plain English.

Identity

Fuel type

How the car is powered, as LTA classifies it. Electric and plug-in hybrid cars can both use public chargers; a petrol-hybrid charges only from its own engine and braking.

COE category

Which Certificate of Entitlement category the car bids in. Electric cars making 110 kW or less fall in Category A, which is normally the cheaper of the two; anything more powerful goes to Category B. This is why so many electric models are rated at exactly 110 kW.

Technical

Power output

Maximum power the motor or engine produces. For electric cars this is also what decides the COE category, at the 110 kW line.

Engine capacity

Engine displacement. Electric cars have none, so this is blank for them.

CO₂ emissions

Tailpipe CO₂ as homologated for the Vehicular Emissions Scheme. For an electric car there is no tailpipe, so LTA instead converts its electricity consumption at 0.4 g CO₂ per Wh — which is why this figure can be worked backwards into an official consumption number.

Energy use

Official electricity consumption, derived from the CO₂ figure above. Lower means cheaper to run: this is the number that decides what charging actually costs you.

VES band

Emissions band under the Vehicular Emissions Scheme, from A (cleanest, earns a rebate) down through B and the C bands (which pay a surcharge). Nearly every electric car sits in Band A.

Battery

Usable battery

How much of the pack the car will actually let you use, which is what a charging session and a range figure are built on. Manufacturers hold some capacity back as a buffer, so this is always a little under the headline number.

Gross battery

The pack's total capacity, and usually the figure the brochure advertises. Compare cars on usable capacity above where both are known — gross is the larger, friendlier number, not the one you can spend.

Cell chemistry

What the cells are made of, which decides how you should charge day to day. An LFP (lithium iron phosphate) pack is happy being charged to 100% regularly and needs it occasionally to keep the range readout honest; nickel-based NMC and NCA packs prefer a daily ceiling around 80%, with full charges saved for long trips.

Max AC charging

The onboard charger's ceiling, which caps every AC session no matter what the charger can supply. It is what decides whether one of Singapore's 22 kW AC bays is any faster for this car than an ordinary 7 kW one — for a car capped at 11 kW, it is not.

Max DC charging

The fastest the car will accept on a DC rapid charger, at its best. Real sessions rarely hold this rate for long — it tapers as the pack fills and in the heat — so treat it as a ceiling, not an average.

Figure confidence

How firmly the battery figures above are established. "High" means the manufacturer publishes them for the Singapore-market car; "Medium" means they are carried over from a closely related variant or market and are right in substance but may be off in detail.

Where the figures come from

The provenance of this car's battery figures, in words. LTA publishes power and consumption for every registered variant but never pack capacity, so these are curated by hand and only added where the number is solid enough to defend. Cars with no entry still compare on every other row.

Charging note

Anything about this particular car worth knowing before you pick a charger — usually its chemistry's daily charging ceiling, or an onboard charger that makes a 22 kW AC bay pointless.

Cost breakdown

Open Market Value

What the car is actually worth on import, as assessed by Singapore Customs — the purchase price plus freight, insurance and handling, before any local tax. Every tax below is calculated from this number, so it is the closest thing to the car's "real" price.

GST & excise duty

Excise duty is charged as a percentage of the Open Market Value, and GST is then charged on the total. Both are unavoidable and scale directly with how expensive the car was to import.

Additional Registration Fee

The main registration tax, and usually the largest single tax on a car here. It is tiered: higher bands of Open Market Value are taxed at steeply higher rates, so an expensive car pays disproportionately more.

VES rebate / surcharge

The Vehicular Emissions Scheme adjustment. A negative figure is a rebate for a clean car; a positive figure is a surcharge for a dirty one. Electric cars generally receive the maximum rebate.

EV Early Adoption Incentive

A rebate off the Additional Registration Fee for electric cars, shown as a negative figure. Petrol and hybrid cars receive nothing here.

Registration fee

A flat administrative fee to register the vehicle. The same for every car.

COE premium

The Certificate of Entitlement — the right to own the car for ten years, won at auction. This is set by bidding, not by the car, so it moves every fortnight and is the single most volatile number here. The figure shown is from the month's first bidding exercise.

What you pay

Total before COE

Open Market Value plus every tax and rebate above, before a COE is added. Useful for seeing what the car and its taxes cost independently of the COE market.

Total with COE

Everything above plus the COE — the full cost of putting the car on the road, before any dealer margin. This is the honest floor price.

Distributor price

What the authorised distributor actually advertises, with COE included. Blank where no price was quoted to LTA — often parallel imports or models sold to order.

Dealer margin

The distributor's asking price minus the total cost above — LTA publishes this difference itself. It covers dealer margin, warranty, delivery and anything else bundled in, so it is not pure profit, but it is the clearest view you get of what the showroom adds.

Electric car prices, cheapest first · 7-seater EVs · What each EV costs to charge · Charging prices · Find a charger

Source: LTA Car Cost Update, August 2026. Figures are per registered variant; COE moves every fortnight, so totals shift with it. Not affiliated with or endorsed by LTA.