THE IMPACT OF ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGING INFRASTRUCTURE ON HOUSING PRICES IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

In 2021, Singapore government has initiated a national Green Plan which builds a roadmap for the next 30 years of decarbonization to achieve 2050 Net Zero Emission Target. One of their most imperative agendas is to electrify transportation and Singapore government has provided a list of incentives to promote the widespread of Electric Vehicles (EVs). In this case, the population of EVs also partially relies on the availability and accessibility of the Electric chargers. Compared to HDB that the government agencies can provide tenders and bid to mandate and incentivize the installation of EV chargers. In many private spaces, the installation of most EV chargers is still voluntary. This paper is intended to determine the impact of nearest EV chargers on surrounding housing prices as well as conduct a heterogeneity test on this impact for different land titles. This study also assumes the presence of an announcement effect, which is caused by a series of EV incentives announcement from the government from Jan 2021 to Jan 2022, to test the treatment effect on housing prices located near EV Charging stations (EVCSs). This study adopted the Difference-in-differences (DID) model to evaluate 172030 private residential unit transactions from January 2016 to January 2023. Based on previous literatures, 1 Kilometer (km) is set as the threshold for treatment effect of the EVCSs. The results show residential units enjoyed a price premium of 4.9% located within 1km of nearest EVCSs after the installation of EV Charging infrastructure which rejected the null hypothesis that proximity to EV. Chargers can be detrimental to property value. Increased charging convenience, escalating market share of EV in Singapore, increased public acceptance and education on EVs through the government’s incentives and better air quality are assumed to be explanations for this price premium. Also, the heterogeneous test results showed that different types of property land titles have a different housing price premium. Private landed residential units within 1km of nearest EVCSs enjoyed a price premium of 3.1% and 3.3% for private strata residential units respectively. Lastly, after the series of EV incentives were implemented, private residential units located within 1 km of nearest EVCSs experienced a price premium of 3.0%. Therefore, this paper concluded null hypothesis that proximity to EV charging infrastructure is detrimental to property value is then rejected.