Cars And Effect

Do private-hire cars tarnish the image of a brand? If so, why are car companies jostling for a piece of the blue-label market?

- Christopher Tan

WHEN taxi operator CityCab decided to add white Mercedes-Benz E-Class cars to its fleet in 1997, the towkays began steering away from white Mercs. That white had long been their favourite colour did not matter. They just did not want their limos to be mistaken for cabs.

The behaviour is not unique to Singaporeans. In cities where luxury brands like Mercedes, BMW and Audi are used as taxis, well-heeled car buyers stayed away from the colour used by cab operators.

The same could be seen when ComfortDelGro started buying Hyundai Sonata taxis in 2006. But this time, the popularity of the Sonata model amongst car buyers took a direct hit, even though the visual differences between a Sonata taxi and a Sonata passenger car were vast.

Today, most, if not all Sonata cabs are gone. In their place is the slightly smaller Hyundai i40. Hence in the Hyundai showroom, you now see the Sonata once again being offered as a Korean alternative to the Toyota Camry.

As for the i40, only the wagon variant is available. This variant is not used by taxi companies.

Now that private-hire cars have proliferated like rabbits, do they have the same impact on brand appeal as taxis?

There is no ready data to show, but going by anecdotal evidence, and what you see on the road, it would appear that the negative impact is just as great, if not greater.