Why a Toyota Camry costs 175,000 euros in Singapore

The Toyota Camry costs 46,195 euros in the Netherlands and just 25,000 euros in the USA. How is it possible that the hybrid sedan has to be sold in Singapore for almost 175,000 euros?

The Southeast Asian city-state is small. You can drive from east to west in an hour, the distance is 75 kilometers and from north to south the journey takes only 45 minutes.

Singapore limits the number of cars

5.6 million people live in Singapore, and that’s just about enough. That’s why the government decided in 1990 to limit the number of cars in the country to around 950,000.

Singapore residents must apply for a Certificate of Entitlement (COE) to purchase a car. Since certificates are not released often, their prices have increased dramatically.

The price rose to record highs

In 2020, when the global coronavirus pandemic broke out, demand for COEs fell, causing the average price to rise to around 20,000 euros. A certificate now costs just over 100,000 euros.

That’s why a Toyota Camry Hybrid in Singapore now costs almost 175,000 euros, including COE, taxes and registration costs. The average annual income in Singapore is around 84,000 euros.

Toyota Camry in the Netherlands

The Toyota Camry will be a bigger hit in Singapore than it is here. The Japanese sedan was once sold between 1,000 and 2,000 units per year in the Netherlands. Now there are twenty at most.