I worry the death of the taxi industry means even less avenues for these people to escape to.
Of course the argument here is "well Japan should fix the corporate situation" but the current prime minister seems to be hellbent on the opposite. I think this will suck for a lot of people.
I have high hopes for a positive social impact of self-driving cars out there.
In theory, as things get cheaper to produce, business profits should rise and governments should be able to raise more taxes. So the government then has more means to provide goods and services for free to people who need them.
It's the snake eating it's tail. For business profits to rise, people need to to have disposable income. If you replace enough people with AI, the average disposable income comes down to a point that businesses can't be profitable.
We are already seeing a localized version of this with restaurants in large cities.
For business profits to rise, people need
to to have disposable income
Imagine an island with two people on it and there is one tree that grows apples. And every other day, one of the two people climbs the tree and picks apples so they both have something to eat. Then the next day, the other person owes to climb on the tree because they are in debt to the first person.
Now, let's say one day, one of them discovers, hey, we can just give the tree a kick and the apples fall down on their own!
With the perspective you are proposing, the other one would have to say: Oh my God, don't do it! We will be out of work and starve!
I expect Tokyo is probably even lower than the national average. Visiting just as a tourist it seems like Japan is quite good at creating, I don't want to say bullshit jobs, but perhaps not-that-necessary jobs? Jobs which mainly serve to give something to do to (usually) elderly. My understanding was that the idea is to make them feel to be a contributing part of the society(?)
I mean all the people controlling the pedestrians or acting like "human signs" and such.
Am I getting it wrong?
Singapore's unemployment statistic only counts people who are looking, not people who are retired or have given up [1]:
> A person is considered unemployed if he or she is:
> • not working;
> • actively seeking work; and
> • available for work
I don't know if the other countries follow the same methodology.
[1] https://stats.mom.gov.sg/iMAS_PdfLibrary/mrsd_qtlmr182_Techn...
The vast majority of old people working these jobs, e.g. construction site security, do so because they would likely starve without it.
I don't think taxi driving in Tokyo is one of them (because, as noted, the qualifications needed are pretty minimal), although eg bus drivers are in extremely short supply.
Singapore uses about 11%[1] of its extremely limited land area for land transport (primarily, roads, since all railways are urban passenger rapid transit and not freight). I believe this is too much. 10-13 lane stroads are not uncommon, especially at junctions[2]. Singapore needs more light rail, trams, and permanent bus lanes with bus priority signals, as well as considerably more traffic calming measures in residential neighbourhoods.
Don't get me wrong, its mass rapid transit story is superb, first in class, but mixed-mode transport and last-kilometre connections need to be better.
Also, and related to the post: the Tamil in the website is wrong. Even in the colloquial register I haven't really heard anyone say 'வந்துட்டு'; it ideally ought to be the formal 'வந்துள்ளது'. Better still, a simpler and more accurate translation of 'Waymo in Singapore' is 'சிங்கப்பூரில் Waymo'.
My point is that the land use in Singapore truly shows where LTA's priorities are. Look at Tengah or Bidadari, both brand-new neighbourhoods. Huge, wide 6+-lane dual-carriageways with hardly any traffic on them.
My family has a car in Singapore that has about 70000 km on the odometer after about 6 years of driving, which is quite a lot for purely urban driving. The fact is I can get to most of destinations in about half or a third the time it takes on public transport. It is primarily why I drive if I have to get there quicker.
Singapore is so small though and cabs are cheap and I never needed a car. I can see why Waymo will be very attractive.
Even in countries without an expensive on-road tax, people do often choose to pay more than $10,000 a year in depreciation cost, rather than the option of buying a car that has already gone through the early, rapid depreciation. People also choose to get a car loan, again increasing the cost. I'm fairly uninformed whether the interest on those is significant.
Of course, the COE is in addition to depreciation and maintenance, and those are both also expensive in Singapore. Plus people buy the cars through loans. And, excluding everything I've said above, the cars themselves are very expensive to buy!
As an example, a 2.0L e:HEV Honda Civic is US$195,000 including the COE, so approximately US$90,000 without it. Looking on the US Honda site, it looks like the same car is under US$33,000. There must some on-road taxes in the US, and difference in specs, but that's a big difference in price, in addition to the ~$100,000 COE.
Even knowing they're expensive, there's something I still can't get over, seeing a 6-figure price across the windscreen of a base model (and knowing you don't get to take off any zeros when doing a currency conversion to what you're used to).
If you're well paid expat, it might not be the worst as well. You save so much on income tax in Singapore, but consumption is expensive.
I'm sure for many Singapore still comes out ahead cost wise.
It depends on what you are consuming. Sins like driving, alcohol, smoking and gambling are expensive. But the daily essentials aren't all that expensive, especially eating out starts very low.
Sorry, could you please explain how car loans increase the cost?
> Of course, the COE is in addition to depreciation and maintenance, and those are both also expensive in Singapore. Plus people buy the cars through loans. And, excluding everything I've said above, the cars themselves are very expensive to buy!
In a sense, all these other costs don't really matter: if they increased (or dropped) by a dollar, in equilibrium the winning CoE bid would drop (respectively increase) by a dollar.
Btw, the cab obviously need to bid for CoE as well.
I never had a problem with the driver's music in Singapore: usually they just play the bland local radio, or you can ask them to turn it off. Smell: sometimes a problem when you get a smoker. I guess some try to mask that with heavy scents?
For me the worst is that the local taxi uncles tend to pump the gas pedal. That's nausea inducing.
About the wait for the cab: usually you wait in the mall or at home etc, where you can have shelter from the sun and aircon.
Having your own car is convenient, especially with kids, since you can keep stuff in the car. But having to find parking all the time is also annoying.
Yes!
What vintage was that?
Covid was special. We also rented a shop house at the height of Covid (late 2020) and paid as much per square metre as we previously had paid for HDB.
Also keep in mind that when lots of CoEs expire at the same time, you'll also have more demand in the market from those people whose CoE just expired, but who still want a car.
They are less strict for the latter.
And if you have kids, being able to leave stuff in your car is pretty useful, so you might want to bid.
Though I guess the main reason is: Singapore is rich, so that drives up the bidding.
For many people in Singapore, a car's real utility is to signal status. More often than not, this status gets you real-life benefits. Such as increased dating success.
So there's no drop in total car ownership to explain: that one is held fixed. What we'd need to explain is why comparatively more older people and fewer younger people drive.
Singapore's population has exploded in the past 20 years, almost doubling due to immigration. Native birth rate has collapsed.
Many relatively wealthy foreign individuals have moved to Singapore, disproportionately middle aged and above. These folks also compete in buying car quotas. They can also buy more than one car. Their demand is more inelastic.
Younger folks, local or foreign born are priced out.
Btw, I don't think you need the assumption that the rich people's car demand is inelastic.
Hah! No but seriously. For a variety of reasons, owning a car in Singapore is a step change in QoL.
Infrastructure reasons:
- abundant parking at destinations (e.g. malls), home (HDB flats, condominiums) due to fairly generous car park lot mandates. IIRC, HDBs, where 85% of Singaporeans live, have until fairly recently had a 1:1 unit:lot ratio. Similarly for condominiums. A lot of these are progressively being scaled down especially near train stations, but buildings and giant multi storey parking lots are fixed infrastructure that will be around for decades. Abundant parking will be available for decades still.
- roads are wide and well maintained and well connected.
The experience:
- because the number of cars on the road are controlled through the COE system, the experience of driving is good. We get slow traffic but it is extremely rare that we get the kind of multi-hour jams that other countries experience.
- the door-to-door experience saves tons of time. In public transport, I walk (7m), wait for the train (3m), sit on the train (36m), get out at the interchange and walk to another platform (2m), wait for the train (2m), sit on the train (12m), exit and walk to my destination (11m). Total time: 1h14m. In a car, I walk to my car (2m), drive to my destination (35m), walk from the car park to my destination (1m). Total time: 38m. x2 for the return trip, and the car saves you a whole hour a day.
- the public transport experience is not so good if you have a family or are disabled. Don't even mention cyclists, culturally we spit on them here.
The status: - it's true, the car is a status symbol. You don't know it until you get into conversations where driving a "mere BMW" as opposed to a mercedes is looked down on, or when someone mentions that driving a hatch is "not appropriate" (to station). Sedans are still popular here because they're "executive". Yes, these are all real conversation points I've been in.
Combine all of the above and owning a car in Singapore means you save tons of time, is technically "affordable" after loans, and you get to feel like you made it. So there's huge pressure to get a car. And once you're hooked, it is very difficult to give it up.
Then you have other reasons, like Taxis and Grab compete with individuals for the COE, and parents who "made it" in the boom years buying cars for their kids, and foreign money coming in. But I don't know how big these effects are.
Everyone says that but I've had the opposite experience, possibly due to my location (near Orchard Rd). Can easily pay $15 to essentially go around the corner.
Would it not be better to simply walk if the distance is essentially around the corner?
I’ve been travelling to singapore for the last 15 years, my gut view is cabs are far more expensive today than they were 10 years ago even after adjusting for inflation. Maybe it’s just incorrect memories - rates don’t seem to have increased that much.
I'm hesitating to judge someone taking a ride-share around the corner. Among many other reasons, I can imagine scenarios where someone would think it worth paying to not arrive a sweaty mess.
And eg cars used for Grab and trucks and busses are also privately owned.
More of the damage comes from all of the ways we arrange our lives so that we don't get hit by cars. Eg we don't let the kids out to play in the streets anymore.
Your proposal would be equivalent to dropping that number from 1 million to 0 million.
I think a reduction in the total number of cars is worth debating, but I don't think 0 is the optimal number.
Though I do wish Singapore would take inspiration from Japan, and eliminate street parking; and in general have the government exit the car storage business.
Also, I notice a lot new SF based AI companies have started establishing their offices in Singapore too. Sierra, and Fireworks coming to my mind. As government plays a huge part in Singapore, I guess, government noticing these as necessary investments for the future of Singapore.
Mostly sales offices (and of course, "forward deployed engineers").
We don't usually see exciting tech projects being assigned to Singapore teams, especially with our huge timezone difference with the Bay Area.
It's enough for them that those people have somewhere basic to live and basic medical care so their stats dont look too bad.
Singapore is a mixed economy [1].
But the best part of that control is the free market is only free to the extent the government allows it. There is plenty of time for the taxi drivers to retire. In fact, I believe the average age of taxi drivers are close to 70, so this is forward looking to address an incoming cab driver shortage.
Singapore really wants to look like Season 3 of Westworld. A shame the Marina Bay flying drone taxi service looks completely dead.
Some scenes in Westworld season 3 were filmed in Singapore:
https://www.timeout.com/singapore/film/11-places-in-singapor...
It’s been mentioned: https://www.mot.gov.sg/news-resources/newsroom/-more-options...
Seriously considering selling our family’s 3 petrol cars and replacing them with a small EV (byd racco, if it ever comes to Singapore) only for grocery runs, especially if Waymo becomes a reality here. I’m not a fan of the inconsistent experience offered by Singapore’s private-hire operators, such as Grab, where poorly maintained vehicles and questionable driving standards are not uncommon.
I also hope Waymo eventually uses the China made Zeekr Ojai in Singapore rather than the Jaguar I-Pace.
i just hope waymo cars will be more gracious than local drivers
[0] https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/transport/acting-tran...
"Waymo said it will introduce its fully autonomous, all-electric ride-hailing service in Singapore via the Waymo app by 2028.
An initial fleet of all-electric Jaguar I-PACE vehicles is expected to arrive in the coming months, it said.
Mapping and validation activities are scheduled for 2027, with trained autonomous specialists conducting initial manual driving to adapt the Waymo Driver to local road geometry, monsoon weather patterns, and more. "
https://mothership.sg/2026/09/waymo-self-driving-cars-singap...
Unless you mean the steering wheel is on the wrong side, but that seems like it wouldn’t matter for an autonomous vehicle.
Heck even here in Prague with less than perfect public transport I don't get people using taxi/uber, only reasonable scenarios to me are multiple people with lots of baggage on the way from airport or people going in night from pub/event after most of the public transport stopped operating (though buses/trams run 24/7, just less frequent in night).
In ~10 years living in Prague I used taxi I think only twice - with wife delivering baby on the way to hospital and with wife returning with newborn back home from hospital.
Even then, the vast majority of people taking taxis regularly are business people going to and from business meetings and expensing it away, as evidenced by the heavily targeted ads for BtoB SaaS playing on the screens in the back of Tokyo taxis.