The EV revolution was on full display at the Singapore Motor Show. Just about every car brand at the Suntec City exhibition hall, which hosted the car show from Jan. 9 to 12, showed off at least one hybrid or battery electric vehicle, as world car markets continue their drive away from internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.
“Customers in Singapore are increasingly willing to embrace electrification,” Ron Lim, head of sales and marketing at Tan Chong Motor Sales, which sells Nissan models in Singapore. (Parent company Tan Chong Motor Holdings, based in Malaysia, is No. 430 on the Fortune Southeast Asia 500, which ranks the region’s largest companies by revenue).
Singapore’s government wants to phase out the sale of new ICE passenger vehicles by 2030.
At the Motor Show, Chinese brands are capitalizing on the shift away from petrol. Eleven out of 28 brands participating at the show were from China. The list included newcomers, like Deepal and Jaecoo, debuted in 2023 by Changan Automobile and Chery respectively. The show also included relatively more established EV brands like Zeekr and Maxus, owned by Geely and SAIC Motor respectively.
Chinese EV giant BYD, neck-and-neck with Tesla in global battery EV sales, was present at the show as well.
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Traditional carmakers like Hyundai, Mercedes Benz, and Nissan also displayed non-ICE cars at the convention.
Some Chinese EV carmakers, like Xpeng, Omoda and Jaecoo, were strategically placed on a level that allowed full access to the public, without requiring a ticket. And those that did buy a ticket were greeted by a massive BYD booth upon entering the paid area of the show.
BYD debuted its luxury supercar, the Yangwang U9, at the show. The company demonstrated the car twice a day, including its ability to turn on the spot and “dance.”
Motor Show attendee Martin Peh, who is self-employed and currently drives a ICE vehicle, said the U9 was something he “particularly wanted” to see at the exhibition. Chinese brands are “popping out everywhere,” he said when asked about the brands on display. “That just shows how capable [China’s] automotive industry really can be.”
Chinese cars were also priced competitively compared to the prices of other brands at the show.
Chinese brands have made pricing discussions “very interesting,” said a sales representative from Komoco Motors, which distributes Hyundai in Singapore. (The representative chose to remain unnamed as they were not authorized to speak for the company) Some exhibition goers expressed disappointment upon discovering that the Ioniq 5 and 6, assembled at Hyundai’s Singapore-based “Innovation Center,” were not cheaper than models produced outside the country.
Lim, from Tan Chong Motors, conceded that “new entrants to the market” have intensified the competition. Yet he argued that customers are still gravitating to established brands due to their decades of expertise and long-term support.
It’s still early days for Chinese EV brands in Singapore. BYD only started selling passenger vehicles in the Southeast Asian city in 2019. The Chinese EV giant was Singapore’s most popular vehicle brand by registration in the first half of 2024. (Toyota outsold BYD if sales of Lexus, its subsidiary, are included).
In recent years, Chinese brands like BYD have turned to the export market as a new source of growth, thanks to an extended price war in their home market.
Yet Chinese EV makers are getting caught up in geopolitical frictions, some of which have already resulted in new tariffs in markets like the U.S. and the European Union. Analysts suggest that emerging markets in Southeast Asia are a better target for Chinese carmakers looking to go global, as governments in the region have better relations with Beijing.
