Here in the United States, car ownership is encouraged through tax incentives and near-mandated by a lack of public transit infrastructure — having a car is cheap, and not having one is just about impossible in much of the country. But in much of the rest of the world, this is reversed: Cars are a luxury, and transit is the standard.
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Singapore, it seems, has taken this to an extreme. Owning a vehicle in the city requires a special certificate, one rationed out by the government to limit the number of cars out on the roads. Now, those certificates are hitting record prices: Over $106,000. Reuters has the scoop:
Singapore has a 10-year “certificate of entitlement” (COE) system, introduced in 1990, to control the number of vehicles in the small country, which is home to 5.9 million people and can be driven across in less than an hour.
The quota, offered through a bidding process, has made it the most expensive city in the world to buy a car, with the COE for a large car more than quadrupling from 2020 prices on Wednesday to a record S$146,002 ($106,376.68).
Including COE, registration fees and taxes, a new standard Toyota Camry Hybrid currently costs S$251,388 ($183,000) in Singapore, compared with $28,855 in the U.S. A small, government-subsidised flat in Singapore costs about S$125,000.
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The median annual household salary in Singapore is S$121,188.
Imagine spending double your annual salary on a car. Not a Koenigsegg or Rolls-Royce, but a humble Camry Hybrid — the car known for being Every Single Uber In New York City. The tradeoff, however, might even be worth it. Houses that cost just barely more than an average salary? That, I like the sound of.