Installed an EV charger? Better get it registered

The EV Charging Act has come into force. The law was approved in Parliament in 2022 and has now come into force, with the biggest enforceable action being that every EV charging point in Singapore must be registered.

Owners of existing EV chargers in Singapore have a six-month grace period to register them, and must do so by June 7, 2024.

The good news is that if you already have an EV charger at your home, or are a commercial EV charging solutions operator, registration is free for all existing chargers up to June 7, 2024.

After that, it costs up to $750 to register every new charging station. Registered chargers will have a tamper-proof sticker attached to the unit.

Registration costs will vary with subsidies applied to chargers set to be installed in public spaces, while private–use units in homes and landed properties will cost the most to register. The rates will hold steady until the end of 2025, after which LTA states that it will revisit the matter. 

From June 8, 2024, any person found guilty of using an unregistered EV charger can be fined up to $10,000, jailed for up to six months, or both.

LTA states that the law is designed to ensure that the EV charging network is safe, accessible, and reliable, as the island’s EV charging infrastructure continues to expand. 

From June 2024, the onus will be on suppliers of EV chargers to ensure that their products are LTA-approved, and they will have until June 7, 2024 to get approval seals on their whole catalogue.

But the present stock can still be sold as long as they comply with the LTA’s safety standards. 

Operators of public EV charging services will have their service licences valid for three years, renewable after that. 

Also, you know the annoyance of having five different phone apps on your smartphone to access public charging services from that many service providers? That is set to be a thing of the past too.

The LTA has decreed that public EV charging service providers must allow customers to pay for their use by scanning a QR code or directly via a credit card, instead of only through the service provider’s phone app. This system must be implemented before the end of 2024.

As EV drivers have already experienced, this will greatly add to the convenience of using public EV chargers around Singapore. 

Whatever the COE price situation, Singapore’s EV plan appears to be on track. New electric cars made up 22 percent of the registrations that took place in November 2023. As of late 2023, 18 percent of all registered cars on Singapore’s roads are now EVs. 

ALSO READ: Public EV charging will likely cost more for drivers due to new rules, operators say

This article was first published in CarBuyer.