Singapore hits back at Elon Musk's criticism on EV adoption

In January, Musk criticised the city for being slow to adopt EVs.

After Tesla CEO Elon Musk criticised Singapore for being slow to adopt electric vehicles (EV) in a tweet in January, the city has retaliated and said that taking mass transit is a better climate change solution than "tooling around" in one of Tesla's EVs, Bloomberg reports.

The city-state, which has said its efforts to cope with climate change are as crucial as military defense, has prioritised greater use of its trains and buses, Masagos Zulkifli, minister for environment and water resources, said in an interview Wednesday. Musk has criticised the country for being slow to adopt EVs and said in a January tweet the government “has been unwelcome.”

“What Elon Musk wants to produce is a lifestyle,” Zulkifli said Wednesday when asked about the entrepreneur’s comments. “We are not interested in a lifestyle. We are interested in proper solutions that will address climate problems.”

Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The low-lying island nation faces an existential threat from the impacts of climate change and the country’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in a national address Sunday it could cost more than $100b (US$72b) over the next century to protect it from rising sea levels, hotter temperatures and more intense rainfall.

Read the full report here.

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