How much does it cost to own a car in Singapore?

After taking so many years of public transport in Singapore, I finally decided to buy a car in Singapore. I have no complains regarding Singapore's first class public transportation. It is very efficient and convenient, and it is very cheap compare to other countries. However, I have reached a point that the car could probably save me more time to earn more money. Thus I decided to go for it.

After doing some shopping in Leng Kee road, I bought the 2008 new Toyota Corolla Altis 1.6. Since I am always looking for values, I see the Altis provided good qualities with reasonable price tag $62,700. "Reasonable" in Singapore but expensive compare to USD15k in United States :)

As you may know, Singapore is probably the most expensive place to own a car. Based on the price above, I have done some calculation to see how this is true. Let's assume that we put $15k down payment and we take the loan with 2.5% from the bank for seven years. In Singapore, you can only own the car for 10 years. After that, if you would like to keep the car, you need to bid for the COE (Certificate of Entitlement is a program designed by Singapore government to limit the car ownership in Singapore) again. We will assume we only own the car for 10 years, drive 60km every day and the fuel efficiency of the car is 13km/L, oil price is $2.1/L.

Gas/oil price per month = 60/13 * $2.1 * 30 = $290
Parking fee = $90 * 2 + $60 = $240
(Note: assume two season parking $90/month and other parking fee as $60)

Car insurance per year = $1.7k
Road tax = $851

Total interest = $47,700 * 7 * 2.5% = $8.35k
Scrapping of vehicle value = $17k * 50% = $8.5k
Car depreciation per year = ($62.7k + 8.35k - 8.5k) / 10 = $6.25k
Car maintenance per year = $400

Thus the monthly cost that we need to maintain this car in Singapore is:

(6.25k + $1.7k + $850 + $400)/12 + ($290+$240)
~ $1.3k

Based on "the key household income trends, 2007" published by the Singapore government, the mean monthly household income from work is $4.87k in Singapore. The monthly cost per car is almost one third of the mean monthly house hold income. This explains why only 13.6% (2007) of people in Singapore own a car.