Chinese EV brand Skyworth starts selling cars in Singapore at new Ubi showroom

SINGAPORE - Chinese electric vehicle (EV) brand Skyworth has started selling its cars in Singapore, with the opening of its showroom in Ubi on Jan 7.

The 2,000 sq ft showroom, located at 20 Ubi Road 4, can display up to four vehicles. A workshop handling preparation, repair and maintenance of Skyworth vehicles is located within the same compound.

The showroom opening marks the Chinese EV brand’s foray into the Singapore market, with sales starting on the same day.

The K, an electric sport utility vehicle, is the first Skyworth model available here. The EV is roughly as big as the Toyota Harrier. It has a single 150 kilowatt (kW) motor and its 86 kilowatt-hour battery is said to be good for up to 489km before needing a recharge.

At launch, the car is priced at $183,888 with a Category B certificate of entitlement (COE) and discounts.

In comparison, the price of the Toyota Harrier hybrid, which does not qualify for the tax incentive given to EVs, starts at $248,888 with COE, although the price will likely change after the COE tender exercise that closes on Jan 8.

Opel distributor Alpine Group was appointed as the agent for Skyworth here six months ago. It has invested around $500,000 in the brand so far, said Mr Keith Pang, the director of the group, in a phone interview with The Straits Times on Jan 6.

He also said there are no plans to introduce a lower-powered version of the K, so that the car can qualify for a Category A COE.

Under the current COE structure, non-fully electric cars with up to 130hp and EVs with up to 110kW of power are banded in Category A, which tends to have a lower premium than Category B.

In June 2025, Skyworth will introduce an electric crossover that is roughly the size of the MG 4 EV or Volkswagen Golf in Singapore.

In the last quarter of 2025, the brand will also start selling an electric van here, which will compete against other Chinese models from BYD and Maxus, said Mr Pang.

It was reported in July 2024 that Skyworth’s Singapore showroom was intended to be at Alpine Centre in 7 Ubi Close, under the same roof as Opel. Alpine has held the distributorship of the German car brand since 2011.

Plans changed in October when two levels of Alpine Centre were taken over by Harmony Auto, a dealer for BYD and Denza EV brands.

Skyworth’s showroom location in 20 Ubi Road 4 was previously used by Think One, a motor dealer for commercial and parallel-imported vehicles.

Mr Pang said Think One is in talks to take a stake in the Skyworth distributorship, although this has not been finalised.

Based in Nanjing, a city about 300km north-west of Shanghai, Skyworth made its first EV in 2017 and has a bus-manufacturing subsidiary called Nanjing Golden Dragon. It is part of the Skyworth Group, which was established in Shenzhen in 1988.