Chery Omoda E5 EV and Tiggo 8 PHEV as Malaysian taxis – duo being evaluated for MoT approval

Amidst all the fresh metal at the Malaysia Autoshow 2025 are two Chery vehicles, tucked away in one corner of Hall A at MAEPS. The two units, an all-electric Omoda E5 and Tiggo 8 PHEV, are not part of Chery Malaysia’s displays, but rather part of a taxi showcase at the event.

Both the E5, clad in the familiar red and white colour scheme for Malaysian taxis, and the Tiggo 8, finished in blue, are not in service vehicles, but rather evaluation mules being trialled for approval from the transport ministry for eventual use as hired vehicles.

A quick peek inside the cars showed they were set up for the task, with taximeters present in both, the one in the Omoda E5 being a conventionally-styled digital unit mounted on top of the dashboard while the unit in the Tiggo 8 PHEV is a digital fare meter integrated into a rear-view mirror attachment, with a separate receipt generating device.

We asked the folk at Chery Malaysia about the duo and their planned use as hired vehicles, but although it was indicated that the cars were official channel units, no one on the retail side seemed to be aware that there was such an evaluation being carried out, suggesting that this could be a commercial arrangement managed elsewhere.

In any case, a booth next to the display cars, which was unmanned when we dropped by, revealed who was behind the MoT evaluation programme, with a graphic on the booth containing a Big Blue logo and indicating that the vehicle display was very much a showcase for a ‘Rent To Own Taxi’ programme.

The Big Blue name should be familiar to most, as the company, under Big Blue Taxi Services, once operated MPV taxis clad in the same blue exterior scheme as seen on the Tiggo 8 PHEV example. The present plan is not the first time the company has pushed electrification for hired vehicles – back in 2018, it outlined plans to deploy 20,000 EV cabs in the city by 2020, but this did not materialise.

The idea of using EVs across a large-scale taxi programme was also explored back in 2022, when Mysuri Biz Technologies announced a plan to deploy 1,000 EVs under the TeksiKu banner, with the EVs (consisting of MG5 and BYD e6 models) being made available to drivers under a lease-to-own scheme via the Koperasi Jurupandu TeksiKu cooperative. However, no further news was reported about it.

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