Speaker 1: This is a C N A podcast.
Speaker 1: Here's a fun fact. Do you know how many Tesla
Speaker 1: cars were registered in Singapore in 2012. 1, just one,
Speaker 1: Well, fast forward 10 years later and one in 10
Speaker 1: cars purchased in the first half of 2022 were electric
Speaker 1: vehicles with a total of nearly 1000 teslas now registered here.
Speaker 1: The government has pledged to have all vehicles run on
Speaker 1: cleaner energy by 2040. Efforts to achieve this include incentives
Speaker 1: and rebates as well as building infrastructure to encourage more
Speaker 1: drivers to switch to electric vehicles on the roads.
Speaker 1: But this wasn't always the case. Hello and welcome to
Speaker 1: the climate conversations. I'm your host, julie you today. We're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about electric cars and my guest is the
Speaker 1: first person to own a Tesla in Singapore from being
Speaker 1: a refugee of the Vietnam war to sinking roots here
Speaker 1: in the Lion City, joe Newman has quite a story.
Speaker 1: Welcome, joe. Thanks for joining me. Thanks julie. Glad to
Speaker 1: join the climate conversation. We've had a pretty fascinating and
Speaker 1: incredibly dynamic life to say the least from being a
Speaker 1: refugee from the Vietnam War to graduating from Princeton and
Speaker 1: being the first Tesla owner in Singapore and now the
Speaker 1: president of Tesla owners club here. That's quite a journey.
Speaker 1: And tell us a bit about how you
Speaker 1: ended up here in Singapore. Oh my gosh, how I
Speaker 1: ended up is interesting. I went to America, I didn't
Speaker 1: speak english and this is 1980. I'm 51 years old.
Speaker 1: I lived through the Cold War. I lived through the eighties.
Speaker 1: I studied engineering and I was supposed to be an
Speaker 1: engineer and then I took one year off to go
Speaker 1: to Singapore in 1993 on an exchange program in neon
Speaker 1: polly to be a lecturer. And I came here and
Speaker 1: I was like wait, I don't want to be an engineer.
Speaker 1: And then I got into media,
Speaker 1: that's how I stayed in Singapore. I got married, I
Speaker 1: went into digital and then I got really technical in
Speaker 1: the early days of the dot com era with startups
Speaker 1: and stuff. And then I got into e commerce and
Speaker 1: in the last 10 years or so has been more
Speaker 1: in media as a technologist, I'm a mechanical engineering major
Speaker 1: from one of the top universities. So when electric cars
Speaker 1: came out I'm like okay what is this? What does
Speaker 1: it mean?
Speaker 1: And actually the car that everyone knows me for is
Speaker 1: not the first Tesla on the road, it's the second
Speaker 1: Tesla on the road, the model? S the first Tesla
Speaker 1: is actually Roadster, a bright red Roadster
Speaker 1: that I brought in at the end of 2012, the
Speaker 1: first Tesla registered in Singapore. So why Tesla because when
Speaker 1: Tesla first came out in the U. S. Many thought
Speaker 1: it was going to fail, it's going to go bankrupt.
Speaker 1: It was just a crazy Silicon Valley company trying to
Speaker 1: do the impossible, although now every automaker is trying to
Speaker 1: come up with an electric car, but did you see
Speaker 1: that coming was so exciting about it?
Speaker 1: It wasn't necessarily Tesla initially the first one, we understood
Speaker 1: that the performance of a car is just like any
Speaker 1: other car that drives like a normal car, it's just
Speaker 1: much quieter and acceleration is much faster, a lot more fun.
Speaker 1: But as a mechanical engineer makes sense.
Speaker 1: Electric cars have been around for ages. They're called remote
Speaker 1: controlled toys. Everyone's had them growing up, the little things
Speaker 1: that grow out of, that's an electric car. It is
Speaker 1: that simple, It's got a motor, it's got a battery.
Speaker 1: So the simplicity of it less moving parts and everything
Speaker 1: from a internal combustion engine, which is a normal car.
Speaker 1: What we've done with the internal combustion engine is amazing
Speaker 1: as humans, what we've developed and optimized it to where
Speaker 1: it is,
Speaker 1: but there is a limit as to what we can
Speaker 1: do with an internal combustion engine were exploding fuel, it's
Speaker 1: a mini explosion. You're pumping petrol and you're squirting it
Speaker 1: in there. You're blowing it up, it creates the work
Speaker 1: that drives the car. You look at that, you're like, wow,
Speaker 1: what we've done with that. And then you look at
Speaker 1: electric car and you're like, oh, that's so simple, have
Speaker 1: you ever opened up a remote control cars? Because when
Speaker 1: they break and replace the battery and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's it, there's just a little thing here and then
Speaker 1: there's the battery and then the wheel drive, it's gone.
Speaker 1: So joe take me back to 2015 when you decided
Speaker 1: to import a used Tesla model s from Hong kong.
Speaker 1: I guess what you didn't see coming was tons of
Speaker 1: paperwork and inspections of $15,000 carbon emissions. Surcharge by the
Speaker 1: authorities in Singapore was quite an ordeal, wasn't it? Yes,
Speaker 1: it was annoying. The first car was quite easy. It
Speaker 1: took a couple months and it was on a different
Speaker 1: scheme and I was 40% off part, which is actually
Speaker 1: quite a decent
Speaker 1: incentive. But by the time it rolled around to 16
Speaker 1: when I got the model s in, it was a
Speaker 1: different scheme and the whole L ta slash viacom and
Speaker 1: all the stuff. They just didn't know what to do.
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to go for inspection, but they've never seen
Speaker 1: one that never had to deal with one because the
Speaker 1: testbed electric cars that Singapore had went through a different process,
Speaker 1: they didn't know what to do.
Speaker 1: They didn't have the right equipment even so this incident
Speaker 1: eventually caught the attention of Elon musk who stepped in,
Speaker 1: reached out to Prime Minister lisa and long on the matter.
Speaker 1: What was going through your head then? Well that was
Speaker 1: kind of naughty. That was kind of crazy. I got
Speaker 1: the car in. I need to get on the road.
Speaker 1: It's taking too long. I'm working. I used to fly
Speaker 1: 200 days a year. I was busy and then things
Speaker 1: take longer, things like longer and it was just like
Speaker 1: okay by the time the six months in and they
Speaker 1: were like, okay, everything's done except you need to pay
Speaker 1: this penalty
Speaker 1: instead of getting a rebate for having zero emissions. I
Speaker 1: had to pay $20,000 because my car was considered inefficient
Speaker 1: and I argued with him. I wrote and I wrote
Speaker 1: my mps, I did all this stuff and there was
Speaker 1: no resolution. So I'm like, okay, you know what? It's
Speaker 1: seven months just just pay to get on the road.
Speaker 1: So I just pay the fine, got it on the road.
Speaker 1: And then I was talking to a journal, Rock Hill
Speaker 1: and he did a very short piece for tech tv.
Speaker 1: Just sort of outline what happened and it just went viral.
Speaker 1: All the car guys picked it up. Jalopnik picked it
Speaker 1: up and then it became mainstream that by the end
Speaker 1: of the week Elon musk called the prime Minister the
Speaker 1: reason why one, he had the number and to Prime
Speaker 1: Minister had visited Elon musk at the factory and had
Speaker 1: a tour of Tesla
Speaker 1: and so he comes back and then a month later
Speaker 1: he gets a call and apparently again, I'm not in
Speaker 1: the room, but Ellen says like my car is not
Speaker 1: that inefficient. I don't know what, how you guys test,
Speaker 1: it wasn't about me, it wasn't about the fine, it
Speaker 1: wasn't about, it's like my car is not that inefficient.
Speaker 1: So he was
Speaker 1: more upset that the car was tested wrong more than
Speaker 1: anything else. Did you get to talk to Elon musk?
Speaker 1: I've actually been to the gigafactory when they opened the
Speaker 1: one in Utah. I've actually seen him during my travels.
Speaker 1: I've seen him in shanghai coming out of the same hotel.
Speaker 1: I was saying
Speaker 1: I see a fleet of Teslas drive up. I'm like
Speaker 1: Tesla and then I'm like, hey what's going on? I'm
Speaker 1: like watching and then security comes and I'm like oh
Speaker 1: big huge guys with sunglasses and then Ellen kind of
Speaker 1: rushes out and I'm like I'm like walking over and
Speaker 1: security guys like uh
Speaker 1: I'm joe from
Speaker 1: So thinking back would you have done the same if
Speaker 1: you know that was going to take that much money
Speaker 1: and time. Oh yeah I knew from the beginning that
Speaker 1: it was going to go that way and it will
Speaker 1: go that way as a technology. I have a longer
Speaker 1: view on some of these things. Electric cars are just
Speaker 1: straight forward. It will maybe it's not 50 years, maybe
Speaker 1: it's 100 years but it will happen and now it's
Speaker 1: to happen faster whether it's the climate change and everything
Speaker 1: but we can't keep on exploding petrol. There is going
Speaker 1: to be a limit somewhere. We need different renewable energy.
Speaker 1: We need to figure out what that is. So I
Speaker 1: guess after your incident followed by the government's start stop
Speaker 1: approach to electro mobility.
Speaker 1: Some prospective E. V. Virus have been staying away. They've
Speaker 1: been feeling unsure about E. V. S future in Singapore
Speaker 1: but fast forward today. What in 10 cars purchased in
Speaker 1: the first half of 22 were electric vehicles? Does this
Speaker 1: come as a surprise to you? What do you think
Speaker 1: triggered that change? Obviously the government policy, I think in
Speaker 1: 20
Speaker 1: 35 we will stop selling I ce cars here. So
Speaker 1: that's pure internal compassion. There still be hybrids, the battery
Speaker 1: going into a car is happening. Whether it's the only
Speaker 1: thing that powers the car which is the trend or
Speaker 1: there will be a period where there is a mix
Speaker 1: of hybrids and plug in hybrids have always said, Singapore
Speaker 1: is the first and only market that can do this
Speaker 1: in 10 years
Speaker 1: by something called C. O. E. It can phase out
Speaker 1: all cars in 10 years and force new C. O.
Speaker 1: S to be signed on at a different right? So
Speaker 1: of all the countries that could do it, Singapore has
Speaker 1: the legal system and legal ability to actually do it.
Speaker 1: When you say people about Singapore, like it's an ideal
Speaker 1: place for TVs. Why is it not there? It's more
Speaker 1: ideal than Hong kong Hong kong has more Teslas. Why
Speaker 1: is that? Singapore is ideal. It's small and short. You
Speaker 1: have to worry about charging. It can always be connected anywhere.
Speaker 1: So when you talk to the other Tesla owners,
Speaker 1: what are the main reasons why people are buying E. V. S.
Speaker 1: I think there's a novelty aspect, there is the branding
Speaker 1: aspect for Tesla in particular
Speaker 1: the environment is a big factor. Money, how much a
Speaker 1: car is? That's the first factor and then okay what
Speaker 1: brand do you want? Why do you want to be
Speaker 1: associated with this brand? Yes, the Tesla brand talks about sustainability,
Speaker 1: talks about sustainable transport. So there is that huge component
Speaker 1: of people buying that into Tessa and then Volvo has one.
Speaker 1: Now obviously that the chinese ones have brought a number
Speaker 1: of them in. There is a lot more selection now
Speaker 1: and then people will start to say okay we're choosing
Speaker 1: electric and so there are choosing electric for those reasons.
Speaker 1: Obviously the top brand is currently Tesla that's for a
Speaker 1: number of reasons. The software integration is beyond anything that
Speaker 1: other manufacturers are currently doing. Like I've controlled my car
Speaker 1: from my phone since 2016. My wife is like, hey
Speaker 1: I'm at the car, I've got baggage okay, unlock, okay,
Speaker 1: done lock, alright, come back and meet me at the
Speaker 1: coffee shop.
Speaker 1: The ability to just have access to it when you're
Speaker 1: in it to control everything from the corridor to the
Speaker 1: windows to the music that's on Spotify. All that stuff
Speaker 1: is one Os. Yeah it's not apple carplay and that
Speaker 1: to me is something that's very cool that the other
Speaker 1: manufacturers have yet to catch up.
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Speaker 2: of a new podcast called Money talks. Yes, we will
Speaker 2: be talking about money but more than that, we'll also
Speaker 2: be talking about life, personal choices, lucky breaks and how
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Speaker 1: The momentum seems to be gathering pace, but the take
Speaker 1: up for E. V. S is still one in 10,
Speaker 1: which means it's still appealing only to a minority of customers.
Speaker 1: And in fact joe BMW did a survey and found
Speaker 1: that 54% of car owners are not ready to switch
Speaker 1: to an electric vehicle.
Speaker 1: What do you think is still holding so many drivers back?
Speaker 1: Everyone's waiting for charging infrastructure. Everyone wants to see more
Speaker 1: chargers going up, particularly when you don't have landed property
Speaker 1: and don't charge at home. Right? When you rely on
Speaker 1: public charging and which is what most people will have
Speaker 1: to do. Accessibility that and changing your schedule is and okay,
Speaker 1: well I'll go there and I'll plug in. I know
Speaker 1: where to plug in when there's more ability to plug
Speaker 1: in into condos in all malls, more parking lots are dedicated,
Speaker 1: all that stuff and then people will be less concerned
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 1: I don't think there is a concern at the moment
Speaker 1: because I think we have more chargers per car than
Speaker 1: in Hong kong. So I hear that you charge your E. V.
Speaker 1: Primarily at home. What does it take to install the
Speaker 1: private E. V charging station right at your doorstep. There
Speaker 1: are many people offering the services these days, Tesla owners club,
Speaker 1: we have partners who offer solutions on installing and maintaining
Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff. I think installation is
Speaker 1: about $3000.
Speaker 1: It varies depending on the charger. Mine does about 40
Speaker 1: km of charge per hour. I can plug it in
Speaker 1: three hours later. I'm full or something like that. That's
Speaker 1: a night chargers like my phone, I plug in my phone,
Speaker 1: I plug in my car. We also charge outside as well,
Speaker 1: whether it's green lots, which is now shells or sp
Speaker 1: you just go find the right one. Okay, go and
Speaker 1: pay for in your app.
Speaker 1: Some point to range anxiety as one of the key obstacles.
Speaker 1: This means the fear that the car's battery will die
Speaker 1: mid trip. Has that ever happened to you or anyone
Speaker 1: who owns a Tesla that you know of everyone when
Speaker 1: they first get it has that range anxiety and they
Speaker 1: have to just learn that it's not an issue.
Speaker 1: So once you creep down to below 100 kilometers and
Speaker 1: you're like, okay, but Singapore is so small. The worst
Speaker 1: you can do is get towed somewhere. I never had
Speaker 1: to get towed anywhere because I ran out of electricity.
Speaker 1: My car has 400 kilometers range. Like it's like a week.
Speaker 1: I don't have to worry as much, but other people
Speaker 1: who live in condos, I need to figure out charging.
Speaker 1: Yeah there'll be a period where they're kind of worried
Speaker 1: and until your comfort level is like okay I'm going
Speaker 1: to charge the next day. It's a mindset change. It's
Speaker 1: a real concern is a real problem. Know, what would
Speaker 1: you say to those people who argue that E. V.
Speaker 1: S are no better that they have a larger carbon
Speaker 1: footprint and typical cars and exciting lithium ion batteries that
Speaker 1: tend to be more sort of resource intensive to make.
Speaker 1: What would you say to them? Sure at the beginning
Speaker 1: of any technology it's going to have that curve of
Speaker 1: investments of R and D. These car factories have been
Speaker 1: around for ages.
Speaker 1: They're out of the equation when you have a new
Speaker 1: car because it's been there. It's it's kind of built in.
Speaker 1: Well now there's a new factory now there's a new
Speaker 1: way of doing things. Yes. In the short term it's
Speaker 1: going to seem like it's taxing more the environment as
Speaker 1: things are being developed. You can say a carbon footprint
Speaker 1: is high. Well not because I'm driving it, not because
Speaker 1: I'm plugging in and by the way I'm paying for
Speaker 1: all the carbon footprint through my electricity bill anyway. You're
Speaker 1: not paying for the externality of dumping C. 02 into
Speaker 1: the air into the city
Speaker 1: that's an externality that you don't get taxed where you
Speaker 1: get tax for petrol for economic reasons on how the
Speaker 1: country runs but has the country counted in the externality
Speaker 1: of carbon dioxide dumping out of a car? I would
Speaker 1: say it hasn't because it's charging me the same road tax.
Speaker 1: Actually higher road tax for T. V. Than for an
Speaker 1: internal combustion engine. So I would say that Singapore hasn't
Speaker 1: taken that into account
Speaker 1: the externality of carbon dioxide spewing directly into the city. Alright,
Speaker 1: so joe as a person who had a sort of
Speaker 1: front row seat to watch the transformations unfold. How hopeful
Speaker 1: are you that E. V. S will be the technology
Speaker 1: that will finally wean us off from fossil fuels. I
Speaker 1: think car ownership would change, I would say 10 years
Speaker 1: when cars are driving themselves, ownership of a car doesn't
Speaker 1: matter fractional ownership of a car could be interesting. I
Speaker 1: could buy a car and then when I'm at my
Speaker 1: office the car goes out and makes money for me
Speaker 1: doing grab automatic automatic driving and it comes back because
Speaker 1: I'm like oh I have a lunch appointment, I'm scheduled
Speaker 1: to come back. It comes back and picks me up.
Speaker 1: That kind of ownership changes
Speaker 1: how it's powered becomes irrelevant to a consumer but from
Speaker 1: an industry perspective it will be easier to control autopilot
Speaker 1: and it'll be a commercial decision on moving to CVS
Speaker 1: and be able to back up that automated car charges somewhere,
Speaker 1: it comes back, it's ready, the whole fleet will be
Speaker 1: like that. So I think car ownership will change America
Speaker 1: is different? Everyone's gonna have a car. Everyone loves stuff.
Speaker 1: But in a Singapore in cities why would you own
Speaker 1: a car
Speaker 1: when you can own a fractional ownership of a car
Speaker 1: and have it ready when you need to like the Jetsons.
Speaker 1: You ever watch the Jetsons growing up? It's a cartoon
Speaker 1: and the future of family. It's a flying car that
Speaker 1: just comes whenever they need it and then okay then
Speaker 1: zooms off and drop them off and then it goes
Speaker 1: and parks itself. You don't have to worry about parking.
Speaker 1: So I think mobility changing grab will start changing
Speaker 1: electric cars will just sort of happen because it's just
Speaker 1: easier to manage to flee anyone who wants to buy E. V.
Speaker 1: If there's one thing that you like to say to
Speaker 1: them what would it be joe We really have to
Speaker 1: think about what we contribute to society and how we
Speaker 1: do little things to change. This will happen
Speaker 1: and whether you're on it now or later you will
Speaker 1: be there and it's just part of the future.
Speaker 1: The other thing when we're talking about climate change beyond
Speaker 1: cars and TVs is just consume less. Just consume less stuff.
Speaker 1: We're so ready to consume more things. Just consume less
Speaker 1: things that's packaged things. Let's just consume less. I eat
Speaker 1: one meal a day these days I'm going to live
Speaker 1: to 100. That's the plan. I have a plan to
Speaker 1: live to 100 and 51 years old and that means
Speaker 1: I need to be physically fit. Yeah, I need to
Speaker 1: be physically fit. I need to be mentally
Speaker 1: financially fit and all that stuff. Part of that is
Speaker 1: just how do you live your life just consume less
Speaker 1: consumers are the ones that are actually driving everything, but
Speaker 1: to do your part for the environment as a consumer
Speaker 1: just by less, consume less. That's how they actually contribute. Okay,
Speaker 1: what a great message to end on. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: joe for your time. I really enjoyed talking to you.
Speaker 1: Thanks julie. Good to chat with you.
Speaker 1: Well, thanks to my guest, joe Newman and thanks to
Speaker 1: all of you for tuning in. We hope you enjoyed
Speaker 1: this episode that do remember to subscribe and like this podcast.
Speaker 1: So you know, when a new episode drops, you can
Speaker 1: find CNN's climate and sustainability coverage online at sienna dot asia.
Speaker 1: The team behind this podcast is Joanne, chan Jacqueline chan
Speaker 1: Danieli and Christina robert and I'm julie you signing off