\n<\/p>\n
Most showrooms CNA visited in Ubi on Friday afternoon were empty, except for one electric vehicle showroom. Salespeople said weekday afternoons are typically quieter and that the market was currently slow.<\/p>\n
Prospective buyer Ng Yong Hua, 39, said his first thought on hearing of the proposal was how COE prices would change.<\/p>\n
The finance manager had his eye on a Jaecoo 6, which has both Category A and B variants. Mr Ng said he would have to \u201crethink his options\u201d if he had to pay a surcharge \u2013 but eventually decided to buy the car that day due to other factors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe saleslady told me the interest rate for the car financing is going to go up today \u2026 So I’m also looking to obviously keep my financing as cheap as possible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Retiree Steven Chen, who is looking to buy an electric car, said he would wait and see how the reforms play out if adopted.<\/p>\n
His decision depends on the final package a salesperson can offer, and dealers could \u201cabsorb\u201d the S$15,000 surcharge in early-bird or year-end sales, for example, the 59-year-old said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, we can’t control anything because the bidding is all by agent. So how much they bid, we don’t care. Our thinking is, as long as this is the right price, we’ll buy,\u201d he said. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Others, like IT professional Andy Ho, 51, felt the proposed reform was \u201cnot exciting\u201d as strong demand for cars means COE prices will remain high.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s just a kind of \u2018change the soup, but the ingredients are the same\u2019,\u201d he said, adding that he will wait and see how the reforms unfold as his current car has three years left on its COE.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Car owner Roy See bought his Zeekr 7X, a Category B premium EV, for S$236,000 in 2025. He would not make the same purchase today if he faced a S$15,000 surcharge on prevailing COE prices.<\/p>\n
Mr See, 47, said he benefited from higher EV adoption rebates and incentives and lower COE prices last year. COE classification was not foremost in his mind then \u2013 he liked his car\u2019s premium positioning and was prepared to pay Category B prices.<\/p>\n
Since then, EV adoption rebates and incentives have tapered down, while COE prices have generally risen. A S$15,000 surcharge would be felt more keenly now and be enough to sway his decision, he said.<\/p>\n
Lecturer Gerard Joseph Lim, 39, also said he would wait to see how the proposal plays out, in case rebates that make cars more affordable drive up demand and COE premiums instead.<\/p>\n
Dr Lim, who is in the market for an affordable Japanese-made car, said the rebate may influence his choice of model, but that the deciding factor is whether he needs a car for his family or personal use.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it is a necessity, then I would aim for a lower open market value car since that is what I understand the categorisation is going to be based on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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BUYERS MULL OPTIONS Most showrooms CNA visited in Ubi on Friday afternoon were empty, except for one electric vehicle showroom. Salespeople said weekday afternoons are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":91595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dam.mediacorp.sg\/image\/upload\/s--bidBaJKs--\/c_fill,g_auto,h_676,w_1200\/fl_relative,g_south_east,l_mediacorp:cna:watermark:2021-08:cna,w_0.1\/f_auto,q_auto\/v1\/mediacorp\/cna\/image\/2026\/10\/09\/118358.jpg?itok=R2_HrNIr","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[10290,2079,1947,14249,5661,3656,4555,24637,17899],"class_list":["post-91594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-news-sg-global","tag-buyers","tag-car","tag-coe","tag-dealers","tag-deter","tag-luxury","tag-proposed","tag-s15000","tag-surcharge","wpcat-2-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=91594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/91595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=91594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=91594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=91594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}