Later in the year, Audi is expected to release the e-tron GT sports saloon, and an R8-based e-tron sports car further down the road.

BMW have an all-electric version of its super-popular X3 SUV, the iX3, arriving this year, as well as its smaller, funkier cousin, the Mini Cooper SE. Then there is the iNEXT (a mid-sized SUV, we think) and the i4 sports saloon arriving in 2021.

Can the electric Bollinger truck go where the Tesla Model X SUV can’t?

Mercedes-Benz already has the EQC and boss Ola Kallenius has promised that “electromobility will become the core business of Mercedes-Benz”. Mercedes-Benz has exhibited the Vision EQS concept car that previews an all-electric S-Class, which is a sure sign that the carmaker is serious about electric cars.

Then we come to Porsche, which will present the most serious challenge to Tesla’s crown with the Taycan. Tesla is so worried about the lunatic Taycan Turbo S stealing its thunder, it’s developing an equally loony Model S Plaid to counter it.

You also have non-German carmakers. Jaguar has had the I-Pace for a little over a year now and Lexus is starting small (metaphorically speaking) with the UX 300e. I’ve driven the former and found it to be deeply impressive from a dynamics, refinement and engineering standpoint. The only thing that’s a bit trickier to get over is its sawn-off, vertical rump, but that’s a matter of taste. I’ve not laid hands on the Lexus yet, but given the Japanese carmaker’s current form and how much I liked the “regular” UX, I bet the UX 300e will be good.

Fans sign up to buy Porsche’s first fully electric car, the Taycan

But where is everyone going to charge the electric cars once they get them? In Singapore, it’d be at one of the 1,000 or so public charging stations islandwide (a quarter of those will be DC quick-charging stations) that SP Group is planning to set up by the end of 2021. This doesn’t include the 200 that SP Group has already built, joining the existing ones operated by Red Dot Power and electromobility charging pioneer Greenlots.

How long it will take to charge your car? It’s unreasonable to expect someone to spend hours waiting around while their car charges. The answer lies in the high-powered quick-charging stations that can fully juice up your electric ride or at least get you to where you need to go, in 30 minutes.

We’ve now got the cars, and the infrastructure to charge them is widely available and using them is practical, removing one of the biggest hurdles facing widespread electric vehicle adoption. So, why aren’t we seeing more electric cars zipping around? Why is it that most of the electric cars we see in Singapore are in the hands of taxi companies or car-sharing services such as BlueSG?

Some will point out that you can’t just run up to a petrol station to do a splash-and-dash when you’re running low, and this is true. Going electric will require you to change your driving habits, not dissimilar to how you use your smartphone. You top up its batteries when you can, either when you’re at your desk at work or overnight. There are few people out there who would run their phones flat. The biggest hurdle facing widespread adoption of electric cars is how much they cost. Not to buy, because any car in Singapore is priced exorbitantly, but how much they will cost in tax.

From BMW to Tesla: 5 sexy electric cars we should be driving

While road tax for internal combustion cars is pegged to every cubic centimetre of displacement; for an electric car, it’s based on kW power output. This means something as comparatively humble as Kia Niro EV with its 150kW (204hp) output will see you saddled with an annual S$2,246 (US$1,641) road tax bill, equivalent to what the owner of a three-litre petrol car would pay.

The numbers get more crazy from there. The 295kW (400hp) Jaguar I-Pace attracts an annual road tax premium of S$5,802, which is similar to what the owner of a Lamborghini Huracán with its 5.2-litre V10 engine would pay.

As for something at the absolute top of the (power) heap such as the Porsche Taycan Turbo S with its 560kW (761hp) output? You can expect to hand over S$12,458 for the privilege. This almost makes the S$8,252 road tax bill paid by Rolls-Royce Cullinan owners look like a bargain. That car has a 6.75-litre V12, the largest displacement internal combustion passenger car sold in Singapore today.

Mercedes-Benz reveals all-electric EQC, but you must wait until 2020

If that sounds punitive, it’s because it is. Everything car-related in Singapore is punitive to some degree. And electric car owners shouldn’t feel too put out because the high road tax premiums are offset by the far lower energy costs-per-kilometre of electric car ownership. This is similar to what owners of diesel cars face, what with the so-called “special tax” putting them on a level playing field (sort of) with comparable petrol cars.

The point the local authorities are trying to make is this: no cars are special because while they are greener, they still take up space on the road. That’s something that has concerned the authorities since day one and the reason why Singapore even has the Certificate Of Entitlement (COE) system in the first place. The COE is the quota licence received from a successful winning bid in an auction which grants the legal right of the holder to register, own and use a vehicle in Singapore for 10 years.

So, forget about the tax breaks incentivising electric car ownership that some countries get. This might be the biggest thing stopping widespread adoption of electric cars in Singapore. While Tesla’s Elon Musk and other carmakers are touting electric as the better choice, the Singapore government isn’t buying it. Consumers probably won’t either, outside of the most committed electric enthusiasts.

Hong Kong scrapped a tax waiver for electric vehicles in April 2017. From selling just shy of 3,000 cars in March that year as people rushed to buy Teslas before the tax break was rescinded, sales crashed the next month and the carmaker has barely shifted 200 units since April 2017.

Ultimately, it’s a dollars and cents issue, and that’s not counting how an electric car, for the moment, is more expensive to buy than a conventionally powered one. The Kia Niro EV costs just shy of S$200,000, which is money you could put into an entry-level Mercedes-Benz C-Class. For the Jaguar I-Pace, prices start at around S$350,000 and there are lots of other cars you could get for the same price. Which is a pity because I’ve driven those two cars and they’re extremely good. I’ve not laid hands on the Porsche Taycan yet, but by all accounts, that should be amazing as well.

Which of the world’s top luxury housing markets will be strongest in 2020

Perhaps, at some point, combustion cars will be taxed so heavily as to make electric ones viable, and by then a public charging station might be as ubiquitous as a regular filling station. While electric cars are set to take the spotlight globally next year, an electric dawn is still some way off in Singapore.

Want more stories like this? Sign up here. Follow STYLE on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter .