Petrol duties were raised as part of the Republic's larger push towards a more sustainable future (Petrol duties raised for first time in six years, Feb 17).

While I applaud the new sustainability initiatives, I have reservations about spending taxpayers' money to sustain private car ownership in the form of increased support for electric vehicle-related initiatives.

According to the Singapore Green Plan 2030, the Government will revise Singapore's multi-layered vehicle tax structure to make it easier to buy and own electric vehicles (EVs).

Together, the EV incentives will give an electric car buyer as much as $45,000 in tax breaks (Cost of owning electric vehicles to be lowered to boost early adoption, Feb 17).

Over the years, the various vehicle policies, in particular the certificate of entitlement and Electronic Road Pricing schemes, have successfully controlled vehicle population and road congestion.

Hence, instead of using public funds to encourage private vehicle owners to switch to EVs, the Government should direct these incentives to improving the public transportation network, and wean Singaporeans off their cars.

The Government should continue to enhance the existing vehicle ownership policies, which are geared towards reducing the total vehicle population in land-scarce Singapore and combating climate change.

Tax incentives can be directed towards developing Singapore as a manufacturing hub or critical node in the global supply chain for clean energy and the EV ecosystem, but certainly not to encourage EV ownership and usage in general.

Let market forces, rather than incentives, accelerate the transition towards EVs.

With clean energy as a disruptive force and technology as an enabler, prices of EVs will go down significantly, and this is already happening.

With petrol and diesel prices going up and the soon-to-be implemented dynamic road pricing, rational people will be motivated to switch to EVs of their own accord based on simple calculations.

Ee Teck Siew