EV chargers reach 700 HDB carparks; public fast chargers rolled out

Drivers here now have more places to juice up their electric vehicles (EVs), as more than 2,400 charging points have been installed at about 700 Housing Board residential carparks across all 26 towns to date.

- Kok Yufeng

Drivers of electric taxis, private-hire cars and commercial fleet vehicles can also top up their batteries much faster, with the roll-out of the first public fast chargers in HDB commercial carparks.

With these fast chargers, drivers can get half of a full charge in 30 minutes, on average, said EV-Electric (EVe) Charging, a Land Transport Authority (LTA) subsidiary overseeing the deployment of public EV chargers, on Jan 18.

In contrast, an EV typically reaches a full charge after six to eight hours using a slow charger.

The new fast chargers are at Basement 2 of the HDB Hub in Toa Payoh and Basement 1 of the Oasis Terraces neighbourhood centre in Punggol.

Launching the chargers at an event at the HDB Hub on Jan 18, Senior Minister of State for Transport Amy Khor said the authorities will look to deploy fast chargers at other HDB neighbourhood and town centres as well as at JTC Corporation industrial estates that fleet drivers frequent.

She said more details will be made public in the coming months.

Dr Khor, who is also Senior Minister of State for Sustainability and the Environment, added: “We have achieved the interim target of equipping one in three HDB carparks with EV chargers by 2023.”

She said: “Over the next couple of years, we will deploy EV chargers to the remaining HDB carparks to ensure convenience.”

The Government’s aim is to install at least 12,000 EV chargers in about 2,000 HDB carparks by 2025.

At the HDB Hub, energy company Shell now operates four fast-charging points, powered by two 120 kilowatt (kW) direct current (DC) dual-gun chargers. There are also two 22kW alternating current (AC) chargers there.