Companies are also using more sustainable materials and energy to produce vehicles. Faurecia, a French automotive tech supplier, is developing compounds and metal foils from sustainable materials like hemp, and cars with more modular designs to allow easy assembly and post-sale retrofitting to extend their usability.
Korean carmaker Hyundai Motor Group, via its innovation centre in Singapore, is using eco-friendly energy sources like solar and hydrogen energy to achieve carbon neutrality in its production.
2) Public-private innovation partnerships are crucial
Leaders in aviation, energy, logistics, and public transit emphasised that building infrastructure to support greener transportation must be a collaborative effort.
In land-scarce Singapore—ranked within the top five cities globally in the Urban Mobility Readiness Index—city planners have encouraged public sector agencies and companies to develop, test and commercialise innovative mobility solutions.
Navya, a French self-driving solutions company, partnered with both public and private partners to launch Asia’s first fully operational autonomous vehicle at Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay in 2015.1
Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA) is working closely with the private sector to implement 60,000 EV charging points by 2030, a goal under the Singapore Green Plan 2030.2 They sought the industry’s views on commercially sustainable business models for charging infrastructure in carparks.
LTA also launched a National Electric Vehicle Centre to promote public-private partnerships to accelerate the deployment of a nationwide EV charging infrastructure, regulations and standards.
3) Cities should offer a “living lab”
There is no shortage of innovative ideas to make transportation greener – from new EV battery technologies, to advanced traffic management solutions, and the use of AI in autonomous vehicles.
But successful deployments require a testbed to scale their solutions – a living lab – and support for innovation, whether through regulations, funding for research and access to talent, said business leaders.
