Giving up

PETALING JAYA: In the face of stiff competition from ride-hailing services like Uber and Grab, as many as 10,000 conventional cab drivers in the Klang Valley may have returned their taxis to their respective companies over the last month.
This is despite many taxi companies trying to encourage cabbies to retain their vehicles by offering massive discounts in downpayment and daily rental rates over the last six months.
It is also learnt that since May, taxi companies have reduced the downpayment to lease a budget cab from RM8,000 and a guarantor to below RM2,500 without a guarantor required. Daily rentals have also been reduced to RM40 from RM55 previously for a Proton Persona.
"Most taxi operators and companies have reported a high number of vehicles being returned. We are not talking about just old vehicles, but even new ones," Peninsular Bumiputra Taxi Operators Association (Perbumi) president Datuk Mohd Alias Abdul told theSun today.
"Between 10% and 30% of the total number of taxis (35,000) in the Klang Valley have been returned to their operators in the past three to four weeks," he said, adding that this was because since the introduction of the ride-sharing apps, taxi drivers' income have seen a dip by as much as 40%.
Mohd Alias said there were also several instances where vehicles were repossessed by operators due to outstanding rental payments amounting to several months.
"We have given them (drivers) a lot of leeway. Some of them have outstanding payments of five or six months although we gave them notices and warnings," he added.
A spokesman for taxi operator New Supercab Sdn Berhad, who wished to be known only as Valerie, confirmed that there has been a huge increase in drivers returning their vehicles and vehicles being repossessed for outstanding rentals, especially in the past few months.
"I spoke to some of our drivers, and most of them said it was hard for them to cope with the competition from Uber and Grab, earning hardly enough income for themselves," she said.
Checks by theSun at the company's building in Glenmarie, Shah Alam also found some 200 taxis, mostly returned, parked around the compound and at an open field beside.
Big Blue Taxi Services founder Datuk Shamsubahrin Ismail, however, said his company did not have any issue of drivers returning their vehicles, as it operates premium taxi services while most of those affected are budget taxis.