Photo: UberX vehicles and partner drivers.
Published date: August 8th, 2014
Uber has finally launched its uberX rides for Kuala Lumpur at an event in Bangsar South on August 7th, 2014. Uber is a vehicles for hire service that allows you to easily call for a private cab using your Android, iOS, and Windows Phone 8 smartphones. The new uberX service aims to have prices cheaper than local ‘budget’ cabs, while offering a better and a more pleasant service.
Uber has five services in total covering more than 160 cities around the globe: uberX, TAXI, BLACK, SUV, and LUX. Its original flagship — UberBLACK — was soft-launched in KL back in October 2013, and went live for the general public last January. BLACK gives you executive rides in cars like Honda CR-V or Nissan Teana. UberLUX came into the picture four months ago, where you could book a ride with premium cars like a Jaguar or Mercedes S-Class, but only during weekends.
While both BLACK and LUX offer premium rides, in many ways uberX is much more ambitious and disruptive as it is trying to capture the market previously held by traditional taxicabs. UberX rides are not dissimilar to traditional cabs, except that Uber is using private cars for the same purpose. Plus, no hailing and haggling needed.
The original BLACK in KL has already experienced a summer price cut, where executive rides are now 35% cheaper than what they were before, bringing the fares down to the level of budget cab rides in the Klang Valley. UberX interrupts the norm even further, by claiming that its prices are “15% lower than budget taxis”, possibly making rides cheaper than some shopping complex parking tickets.
If you’re already familiar with UberBLACK, here’s the pricing comparison between the two. Note that UberBLACK’s fare shown below is the regular rate, and not the summer promotion we have now.
Base fare
UberBLACK: RM3.00
uberX: RM1.50
Per km
UberBLACK: RM1.15
uberX: RM0.55
Per minute
UberBLACK: RM0.35
uberX: RM0.20
Minimum fare
UberBLACK: RM5.00
uberX: RM2.50
Cancellation fee
UberBLACK: RM5.00
uberX: RM5.00
KL to KLIA or KLIA2
UberBLACK: Flat rate RM270
uberX: Flat rate RM80
Here are some example fares comparison between uberX and a regular budget taxi ride, provided by Uber:
Bukit Bintang to Subang Jaya
Budget taxi: RM30
uberX: RM25
Mid Valley City to One Utama
Budget taxi: RM18
uberX: RM13
KLCC to Bangsar Baru
Budget taxi: RM16
uberX: RM12.50
At launch, uberX vehicles for sunny Kuala Lumpur include Nissan Almera, Toyota Vios, and our very own Perodua Myvi, all of them new models. Having the engine displacement smaller than 1.6 liters, passenger number goes up to four naturally, though uberX cars are smaller than BLACK rides. Though Uber says the cars come in a variety of colors, they all tend to be less striking; the colors we saw include white, silver, and deep purple. All uberX vehicles at the launch event have big uberX stickers on the doors, but your usual uberX car will be more discreet — having only reflective stickers on the license plates and turn signals.
While there are a lot of Malaysians already open to this concept, with homegrown services like MyTeksi, there are many others who are still hesitant, mainly for two reasons. Firstly, we may still have a perception that rides like these can’t possibly be any cheaper than a regular cab trip. Secondly, some of us may also have perceived these rides to be unsafe, prejudging by the car’s lack of an identification, similar to illegal cabs (also known as ‘prebet sapu’) that used to roam the city many years ago.
Uber says that its highest priority remains to be rider safety and satisfaction, hence each driver undergoes Uber’s screening process during hiring, which includes a criminal background check, driving history check, as well as an ongoing quality assurance via rating system (rated by passengers). Uber only supplies the technology and the system to make the service possible, and the cars are all supplied by third party partners consisting of limousine companies and other vehicles for hire service. Though Uber doesn’t reveal its partners, some of the rides we took before were from ‘Extreme Limousines & Tours’ and TrupCo (this information is already available to you in your Uber ride’s receipt). I believe most uberX cars are from TrupCo at this moment. All Uber rides are backed by the vehicle’s insurance policy, and as mentioned, after each ride, you get to review on the experience, on top of the ability to rate the ride from one to five stars. It’s worth noting that the drivers can rate the passengers too, so be nice.
The Uber folks (left to right): Michael Brown (Regional General Manager), Leon Foong (Head of Operations, Uber KL), Chan Park (Head of Asia Pacific Expansion), Lakshmi Patmarajah (Head of Marketing and Partnerships, Uber KL), Low Jian Wei (Driver Operations Manager, Uber KL), Evelyn Tay (APAC Head of Communications).
For almost an hour before the launch event, Vinot and I were undecided on whether or not we’re going to the uberX launch event that took place at Bangsar South on August 7th, 2014. Following my stumble the day before during a one-on-one interview with Chan Park, Uber’s Head of Asia Pacific Expansion, he, Lakshmi Patmarajah (Uber KL’s Head of Marketing and Partnerships), and the fine folks at Suppagood were kind enough to schedule a second session with Uber Technologies’ Regional General Manager, Michael Brown [interview story up soon!].
Photo: Michael Brown, Regional General Manager of Uber Technologies.
Brown said, “It’s a thrill to launch uberX in KL today because we make getting around this wonderful city so much more affordable, safe and fun. Through this launch, we look forward to continuing to offer choice and convenience for KL residents to get around their city.”
I dragged Vinot along for the second interview and he saved my bacon for coming up with great questions for both Brown and Evelyn Tay of Uber APAC’s Head of Communications, who also happened to be there. After an hour, we have more information than what we need to cover the uberX launch happening three hours later, hence the undecidedness. But we decided to go anyway, which turned out to be a great experience for Vinot as he hasn’t taken an Uber ride before.
Admittedly, before heading to the event, I tried to use a competing service, but none of the cabs were available at the time. Launching the Uber app, I was able to secure a CRV (UberBLACK) which came around 15 minutes later. The ride from Jaya One to Bangsar South cost me RM14.67 with BLACK, but the uberX ride I took back was only RM6.59. The distance was between five to seven kilometers, depending on which route the drivers took.
During the first interview session yesterday, Park said, “We are extremely happy with the growth of the business in KL, and are encouraged to expand to other parts of Malaysia soon. To support this expansion, we are hiring actively.”
True enough, Uber’s hiring process is so aggressive, that two of the uberX drivers we asked actually just started working on that day itself, having been through Uber’s interview process just a day before. We were generally pleased with the collective six Uber rides we took in that two days, and considering that they were able to deliver a good experience on their first day of the job, the service should only get better from here. One of the only problems we noticed for now, is that at any point in time we fire up the app, there seems to be more UberBLACK cars available than uberX. There should be more of the latter due to its lower cost and higher demand. Hopefully this will change as Uber continues to hire new uberX drivers.
Some of you may have heard of protests by taxi unions in the US and even South Korea to thwart Uber’s operations. If you have haters, you’re probably doing something disruptive against the old way of doing things. Knowing how bad KL’s public transportations are, I’ll root for any service that tries to deliver the best experience at the lowest possible cost.
To give uberX a shot, download the app for your Android, iOS, and Windows Phone 8 smartphones (remember to slide the toggle from BLACK to uberX). You’ll need to create an account and enter your credit card details, but from here onwards, you’re golden. If you have a second smartphone, you details will automatically be there once logged in. Even better, should you visit any of the 160+ cities spanning 42 countries, you can use the same app to call for an Uber ride, using your local credit card.
Oh by the way, Uber is launching in Penang soon.
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