In accordance with a new law, Grab Car and other e-hailing services have a deadline of 12th July 2019 to get their Public Service Vehicle (PSV) license. This is the same license that taxi drivers have in order to operate their services. And with that, having to acquire this license, e-hailing services are predicting a 50% drop in drivers.

Anthony Loke, the Minister of Transportation announced the new measure in November last year and opened the mandatory license to e-hailing drivers in January.

With the deadline being so close, industry experts are predicting that e-hailing services in Malaysia (Grab included) will lose roughly 50% of their drivers. This was mainly from reports that mentioned that most have not applied for the license as well as the training.

However, Grab have been supporting their drivers with subsidies for the whole ordeal. Grab subsidise RM 50 for the PSV training, RM 70 for the required car inspection, and the PSV fees which total up to RM 200. But considering that a third of Grab’s 200,000 drivers being part-timers, this could very easily come true.

The Star interviewed Malaysian E-hailing Drivers Association President, Daryl Chong, and he said that he supports the regulation of the e-hailing industry, but at the same time felt that most part timers wouldn’t be willing to go through the process and pay for the PSV fees.

While this isn’t a regulation specifically to Grab, this will definitely hurt Grab’s operations in Malaysia the most. I mean, it’s already damn hard to get a Grab car these days. Now surge pricing is probably going to be worse, so keep that in mind fellow Grab riders.