Singapore Says Musk’s Electric Cars Are About ‘Lifestyle,’ Not Climate – by Dan Murtaugh, Yongchang Chin and Haslinda Amin (Bloomberg News – August 21, 2019)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/

(Bloomberg) — Singapore has a message for Elon Musk: Taking mass transit is a better climate-change solution than tooling around in one of his Tesla Inc.’s electric vehicles.

The city-state, which has said its efforts to cope with climate change are as crucial as military defense, has prioritized greater use of its trains and buses, Masagos Zulkifli, minister for environment and water resources, said in an interview Wednesday. Musk has criticized 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 S$100 billion ($72 billion) over the next century to protect it from rising sea levels, hotter temperatures and more intense rainfall.

Singapore’s trains and buses cover much of the island’s 720 square kilometers (280 square miles) with the newest subway routes featuring driverless carriages and several of the most-popular bus routes traversed by double-decker carriers.

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