for seven days in the city of Singapore.

Fun fact: it goes really fast. More fun  facts: it goes very, very, very fast.

It's at 12 percent right now and the remaining time is almost 7 hours.

There're more than 10 million  electric vehicles in the world.

That's pretty impressive, considering  that if you rewound back a decade,  

you'd find a grand total of 0.

But before the world can fully make the  switch to electric, sufficient infrastructure  

has to be in place first, especially in  cities crammed with high rise apartments.

Governments all around the world have been  encouraging that with policies and incentives,  

but where are we on that journey?

And can a city dweller like me adapt?

Here's what I learned.

If you drive electric, you'll still have to  contend with all of the pitfalls of city driving,  

and the charging question.

Like: where would I charge it?  How fast or slow will charging be?

And with rising electrical prices,  how much will a full charge cost?

So, I'm here to trade my private transport in  for brand-new electric vehicles for the week,  

just to see what are the pain  points and the plus points.

Five years ago, there were only 12 pure  electric cars driving on Singapore roads.

And by August 2021, there were  more than 1,800 electric cars,  

with about 11% of them being Teslas.

And that's just in a small city-state.

In 2021, 6.75 million EVs were sold globally.

That's double 2020's figures.

Tesla leads the market, with the most  all-electric car sales by far in 2021,  

followed by the Volkswagen group,  BYD, GM and the Stellantis group,  

which has brands such as Jeep,  Chrysler and Alfa Romeo in its stable.

Now back to driving.

After being on the road for a while, I decided  to give my car its first charge during lunch.

But I had to find a charging point first.

Thankfully, there were several  apps to help me with that.

They said that there's charging  lots here, just trying to find them.

So, there's two kinds of charging  points. This is the normal kind,  

I believe, and this is the fast charger.

Is it far enough? It doesn't  look like it's far enough.

I think I need to turn the car.

Because the charging cable wasn't long  enough, so I have to go head in first.

Okay, take two.

Right now, it's actually full. So, we're  gonna see if it makes any difference.

We have to add our credit card to the app first.

Oh, fantastic. So, in the time that we took  the car to our first charge, we went down 3%.

It says that it will take 4 minutes.

It's been 10 minutes plus and it has  only charged 4%. Not a full charge.

So, I think what we're gonna do is we're going  to stop right now. We don't need a full charge.

Hyundai promised a mileage of up to 484 kilometers  with a full charge for its Kona Electric model.

So I put it to the test.

It's been a very, very fun ride, very smooth.

Basically, like any other car, just that  we're not visiting petrol stations anymore.

We're using our mobile apps to locate the nearest  

charging point and we're going  to be heading there right now.

Because it's less than 60km to go and I  don't want to risk going on an empty battery.

Oh, it's just right in front! Fantastic.

And I'm gonna learn from my  mistake, I'm gonna go head in.

This is a slow charger, so I'm gonna  plug it in and see how long it would take.

The battery level does say  that it's very low right now.

Let's see how take it will take.

So, using a slow charger, it's at 12% right now  and the remaining time is almost 7 hours.

It's charging, but slowly and surely.

I think it's a little bit too slow,  even with this service being free,  

so what we're gonna do is we're gonna juice  it up to maybe 15% or 20% and then we're gonna  

find a fast charger to see how long it would  take because I'm not sitting here for 7 hours.

I'm very, highly, aware that  I have very little juice  

in my car now, so we are going to  find a fast charger as soon as we can.

I feel like I'm an expert already.

48 minutes! Which is a big improvement.

We're gonna go grab some coffee  and come back in about an hour.

It's at 84% charge. Within the 45 minutes  it took for me to grab some coffee.  

And there's 16 minutes to go to a 100%  charge, so I think that's pretty good.

We're gonna stop charging here and then  we're gonna see how much it costs.

And it's only $15.36.

Singapore's a country of  only 2,000 charging points.

The city-state aims for all vehicles to  make a switch to clean energy by 2040,  

but there's more than 950,000 vehicles, on the road today including cars, motorcycles, buses and taxis.

So how is that going to be possible?

There are currently about 1.4 million public and  

private parking lots in Singapore,  spread over 12,000 car parks.

Building a wider EV infrastructure in such a  densely packed place has its challenges too.

Within the next decade, the country aims to have  60,000 EV charging points across the island,  

of which 40,000 are in public car parks  and the remainder in private premises.

There is a range of innovative products out there.

Peter Mock is the Managing Director  

of the International Council on  Clean Transportation in Europe.

For example, you have those lampposts where you  can plug in your electric car and charge it.

It doesn't take up lots of space, it's relatively  cheap and can be rolled out throughout the city.

You have a lot of supermarkets nowadays  in Europe that allow you to recharge while  

you're shopping in the supermarket. They have  charging infrastructure in their parking lots.

And I think that's a very intelligent way,  because you're using space that is there anyway,  

and you involve the private businesses  that can build up the infrastructure.

What we want to do is to look at electric  vehicles, and that's not just cars, right?

I've ridden for more than 13 years, longer than I've driven.

So, I'm here to pick up an electric motorcycle  from Italian manufacturer Energica, trade in my  

Triumph for a couple weeks, and see if it  would compel this biker to make a switch.

We wanted something that was on two wheels,  

and in the market, there are a lot in China, the  ones with the swappable batteries and whatnot.

And we looked around and the best  bike possible to bring onto the market  

would be something really high-end.  Energica would be that one.

Tell us about this one.

This is the Energica EsseEsse 9+.

The base model for this has an 80-kilowatt  motor with a 21.5-kilowatt battery.

But the performance on this, if we go just  based on specs alone, is 0-100(km/h) in 2.8 seconds.

Wow, that's really fast. And I'm sure I'll  have the opportunity to test that out.

What's the comparison between this  bike and a conventional CC bike?

No comparison. Plain and simple.

Let's open up the bike.

Here is your DC and AC charger.

So, I can charge anywhere that  I can charge an electric car.

That's correct.

So we have a charger in the office,  and that's where we charge it.

If you're not working for 30 minutes, like a  normal person would work for about 6-7 hours.

You get off work and it's fully charged.

People like myself, people who are trying out  electric vehicles, who's only used to the norm  

and trying to change the mindset, and I think  that's one of the harder parts about trying to get

people to switch over, right?

Number one when we talk about  EVs, it's always range anxiety.

Energica has got one of the highest ranges.

On eco mode, it goes about 380  kilometers on real world mileage.

That's really more than enough for a week.

And it's perfect because in  a city like Singapore, right,  

you're not always on the highways.  You're in traffic, stop go, stop go.

Every time it stops, there's actually a current  of 126 amperes going back into the battery.

The second one is the lifespan of the battery.

They like to liken it to a handphone,  my handphone after three years, my battery's dead.

But for an EV car or bike, as long as you keep  the battery within a healthy range of 20-80%,  

they'll last you 10 years or more.

Once you change the whole  mindset about that, right,  

you'll realize that electric cars  and bikes are really the way to go.

The global motorcycle market generated  sales of around $109 billion in 2021.

And motorbikes and scooters  

remain the primary means of transport  in countries like Vietnam and India.

I took a ride down to Scorpio Electric, the first  electric motorcycle brand launched from Singapore,  

where founder Melvin Goh introduces to  me the X1, a premium electric scooter.

We have a range of 200km. So, I think  that's a good range for city riding.

Top speed is 105km/hour.

There is a charging port here, which  you can charge from any car charger.

What were the things that you saw  could be improved in the market?

The connectivity. It's something  that is a must for the future.

So, we have a lot of functions on the app.

We tell you where you can  locate the charging locations,  

the battery condition, everything  is both on the phone and the app.

Scorpio, as a company, you are a start-up.

What has been the biggest challenge,  breaking into the electric motorcycle market?

We are short of talent.

So, it's a question of the government, the people,  enterprises, companies, encouraging electric and  

it will happen eventually, very quickly.

The X1 wasn't available yet for a demo ride,  

but the Scorpio team allowed me  to test ride an earlier prototype.

It's a lot of fun, great ride!

And I was treated to the  power of the electric scooter,  

with one of the guys doing a quick burn-out!

After days of heavy usage on the  Energica, it was time for a juice-up.

It's charging right now, the lights  will light up, the dashboard lights up.

It's at 39% now. So, this electric  bike, as long as I've had it, I've  

brought it through the wringer, I've ridden  in the rain, I've ridden more than 150km.

And it's only at 39%, now 40%. When I got it,  

it was almost 95%, so that's pretty  good for a week's worth of riding.

So, it says there's 16 minutes left for a full  

charge, that's pretty good, that's  not even enough for a coffee.

From 40% to 80% charge, it's about $3.44.

The electric bike is definitely heavier,  but not necessarily harder to ride.

And well, look, I'm a true-blue  city girl, and I think if I've  

ridden on enough electric  motorcycles and scooters,  

and found the right one for me, the right  height, the right size, I might make the switch.

Back in the Kona, I decided to do a last  charge. And I ran into another problem.

I know from own experience also, in urban areas,  

you'll find the charging spot and then it's  either broken sometimes or it's occupied  

by another vehicle, sometimes even by a  combustion engine vehicle illegally parking there.

Mine? I just need to charge,  like maybe half an hour.

In my case, it was “too many  cars, too little chargers.”

OK never mind, that one is  done, I will go over there.

This is one of the issues when you have  

reliance on public chargers, you  have to wait in line or queue  

up because sometimes when you go to a charging  point, you realize someone is already using it.

After 20 minutes of charging,  my fee was just $5.19.

In 2021, the European Commission made headlines,  

after it presented the world's first  tangible plan to target carbon neutrality.

It included a de facto ban on producing new  diesel and gasoline-powered cars by 2035.

But how will it be implemented? Peter explained.

Every new car in Europe has to be electric.

For this in Europe, we basically have at three  different layers, we have important regulations.

At the European level, highest level, we  have an EU-wide standard for new cars.

The good news is that the manufacturers,  which in the past, sometimes  

tended to oppose these kinds of restrictions  or plans, they are pretty much all on board.

Then at the national level, we have subsidies,  we have tax benefits for electric vehicles.

And for example, in France, we have a very  interesting system, the bonus model system  

it's called, where those vehicles that have low  emissions, electric vehicles, they get a bonus,  

and that bonus is financed by  those vehicles with high emissions.

And then at the lowest level, at the  regional level, you have a lot of different  

incentives in place and measures in place.

We have many cities throughout Europe that have  announced that you cannot go with a combustion  

engine vehicle into that city anymore from  2025 onwards, for example in Bergen and Oslo.

And these targets are very important  symbolic measures because that, I think,  

changes the mindset of consumers and  they know that if I buy my next car,  

it has to be electric, otherwise  I cannot get in the city anymore.

It's been a very fun week.

Those three challenges that I predicted  for myself, even with the very few charging  

points in Singapore, the infrastructure  is there, to build up and add on to.

My advice to any city in the world, really,  would be, to get to know your fleet,