Why I renewed my COE for five years

LAST month, the 10-year COE for my Category B car expired. I was faced with four options: buy a new car; renew the COE for 10 years; renew for five years or do without a car.

Buying a new car was a tempting option. COE prices had fallen from their peak (although they are now rising again). The new models on offer are technologically light years ahead of my decade-old clunker. Some of them come with computer controlled sensors, wide-angle cameras both front and back, driving assistant features that help keep the car within lane markers even at high speeds, "electric eyes" to monitor blind spots, camera-aided parking assistance and touch-screen (and even gesture-controlled) entertainment systems that put my car's humble radio cum CD player to shame.

But in one important aspect, these cars are already obsolete: the car industry has passed a major inflexion point: the transformational technology of the electric car has gone mainstream. Electric vehicles (EVs) are no longer a "maybe in the future" phenomenon. They are already here, and people are buying them.