Masagos takes on Musk as he throws shade at Tesla’s electric cars

It’s no secret that Tesla’s Chief Executive and Tweeter-in-Chief Elon Musk has no love for Singapore’s stance on his snazzy electric vehicles (EVs). Earlier this year, the meme-versed Silicon Valley billionaire slammed the Singapore government for being "unwelcome" to Tesla’s electric dreams, taking issue with the alleged lack of support and glacial pace in adopting EVs. 

It took several months, but they're back at it again. In an interview on Wednesday (Aug 21), Minister for Environment and Water Resources Masagos Zulkifli shot back at Musk’s comments and asserted that his fancy Tesla cars are just “lifestyle” assets and not so much a solution to climate change. 

"What Elon Musk wants to produce is a lifestyle," Masagos said when asked about the entrepreneur's comments, per Bloomberg’s report. 

"We are not interested in a lifestyle. We are interested in proper solutions that will address climate problems."

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Quite a nasty burn there, with Masagos adding that mass transit is the more appropriate step towards tackling climate change. As such, the government has prioritised greater use of buses and trains as part of Singapore’s efforts to cope with global warming — a priority on the same level as the city-state’s military defence. 

Nonetheless, Masagos is confident that Singapore is capable of converting "petrol cars to 100 per cent EVs", but highlighted the difficulty in developing enough charging stations for everyone, especially with most of the population residing in high-density areas. 

"Just choosing a parking spot is already problematic," Bloomberg quoted the minister. "And now you want to say who gets the charging point. We do not have the solution yet."

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Still, that’s not to say that Singapore is entirely unwelcome to EVs, as Musk had claimed. Earlier this week, the Economic Development Board supported Royal Dutch Shell’s initiative in launching EV charging points at 10 Shell kiosks across the country. Next week, the resort island of Sentosa will test-run a service that allows visitors to book rides on driverless electric shuttle buses. SP Group — a state-owned electricity and gas provider — plans to roll out 1,000 EV charging points all over Singapore by next year. 

As of writing, Musk hasn’t responded to Masagos. Perhaps this town is only big enough for one EV-slinging tech billionaire — James Dyson moved his company’s operations here and will have his first Dyson electric car manufacturing plant in Singapore next year. 

ilyas@asiaone.com