Audrey Tang: Hello.

David Plouffe: Hello. Keeping busy. How are you?

David Plouffe: It is raining out, after all.

Audrey Tang: Did you just arrive today?

David Plouffe: Last night. We were in Hong Kong and Tokyo.

Audrey Tang: Here’s my card. It’s a formality, but...

David Plouffe: Formality still has its place, correct?

Audrey Tang: Yes, I think so. We’re recording this. Did your people tell you?

David Plouffe: Yeah.

Audrey Tang: With your permission...here we go now.

David Plouffe: How are you finding your time in government?

Audrey Tang: It’s been more or less the same. I’ve been working as an adviser for the previous cabinet, but also working on open government. For me, it’s mostly just the cabinet telling me to not focus any other time with, let’s say, Apple consulting or Valley companies, and dedicate full time to the public service.

Audrey Tang: Otherwise, I’ve been doing more or less the same work as what we call open government.

David Plouffe: Hence the recording.

Audrey Tang: Hence the recording. It’s a closed‑door meeting, as you requested, but then we would want the other ministries who are actually in charge of related policy‑making...my role in this government is a channel, so that other ministries who couldn’t participate in our meeting still has this information somewhere.

David Plouffe: I’m just curious, what areas specifically are you spending most of your time on now?

Audrey Tang: My three mandates are open government, social enterprises, and then what we call youth council.

David Plouffe: Youth council?

Audrey Tang: Youth council, and that’s it. With open government, I spend my time working on the output side, which is open source, open API, open data, which as I understand, the US Digital Service also does a lot of the same thing.

Audrey Tang: Just today, they launched code.gov, which is something that we very much are inspired by the White House. There’s this mandate that all the administration has to open‑source 20 percent of their code. This is something that we will want to learn from. Also, the civil participation side, which is the input side. We’re involved in multi‑stakeholder meetings and civil participation, participatory budgeting and things like that.

David Plouffe: The data efforts that have been terrific, I think, just getting more tech talent not to make necessarily the current government, but to apply in a few years, both on data, but also the user experience. To make people’s interaction with government as consistent as it is with the best private sector really can go a long way in building trust, right?

Audrey Tang: Yeah. The idea is that the government should focus on providing services in the form of APIs, if necessary. Then the private sector and the civil society can design the best user experience they want, using the API provided by the government.

Audrey Tang: In the previous century, it’s usually the front end and back end are built together. It’s strongly coupled, and people cannot really change that. Now we’re trying to move to decouple that convention.

David Plouffe: I’m curious, jumping into how you see ride‑sharing specifically and some of the debates in government, and how that relates to...obviously, the government’s very clear that they want to have Taiwan be a go‑between, a Silicon Valley of the West, and really be a place of innovation.

David Plouffe: How do you see some of the debates around ride‑sharing, the technology aspects of that, how it fits into the government’s broader goals and ambitions?

Audrey Tang: We’re not trying to be the Silicon Valley of the West. There is a Silicon Valley in the West, and that’s the Silicon Valley.

David Plouffe: I’m sorry. Silicon Valley in Asia. It’s my lack of sleep.

Audrey Tang: That’s fine, but still, we are not trying to be a Silicon Valley of Asia. The plan we had was what we call Asia connecting to Silicon Valley. Taiwan is like a connector that links with Asia and connects with the Silicon Valley.

Audrey Tang: We’re not trying to “shanzhai”, to copy the Silicon Valley, or be a copy of Silicon Valley. I think it’s unique. Until five weeks ago, I was still working with Valley companies.

David Plouffe: Where were you living when you were out there, by the way?

Audrey Tang: I mostly visited. I visited the Valley from time to time, but I am always based in Taiwan. I was telecommuting full‑time.

Audrey Tang: In any case, if the idea was to be a connector, a hub if you will, and one of the many hubs that links the other hubs in Asia. There’s many, right? There’s Singapore. There’s Hong Kong. There’s Korea. There’s Japan. So just to build a stronger link.

Audrey Tang: We’re not trying to be a Silicon Valley, but we do want to connect the talent, the regulatory framework and everything, so that we can connect better towards our peers in the Silicon Valley. That’s the main vision.

Audrey Tang: Ride‑sharing, incidentally, is not (laughs) part of the Asia connecting to Silicon Valley plan. For this plan, in particular, we are focusing more on the deregulation or regulatory normalization. Of course, from the Silicon Valley side, there’s demands like the digital two dozen, and then Internet neutrality and Open Internet. Those are very interesting things that we need to work on.

Audrey Tang: On the Asian context, we also have our original APEC Privacy Framework, and also the EU side of the privacy framework, and we can look at that as well. Ride‑sharing has not yet come up on the agenda of Asia‑Silicon Valley plan. That’s just what it is.

David Plouffe: Well, we’d love to do it. If I can give you the elevator pitch, obviously we’re a technology company. Our technology, here in Taipei and elsewhere, is creating economic activity on ground in cities, both on the rider side, so people have a different way to get around, and ultimately a more affordable way.

David Plouffe: That doesn’t compete with...I know the debate here in Taiwan and a lot of places starts with the old way ‑‑ taxi versus ride‑sharing ride. Every piece of data we see around the world suggests that the market grows.

David Plouffe: There’s some competition for a taxi market, but we don’t really talk about the taxi market in our company. We talk about the personal driver market, and how we get people to turn more of those trips into ride‑sharing, maybe in connection with public transport.

David Plouffe: Then obviously on the driver’s side, it’s creating a lot of economic opportunity here. Our hope would be that, as many countries around the world have found a new regulatory framework embracing ride‑sharing...because I think it’s important.

David Plouffe: Obviously, I’d imagine part of the road map here is autonomous transportation, making cities congestion‑free and emissions‑free. I think this stage is pretty important in getting people used to sharing cars, because ultimately we’d love to bring car‑pooling here, which is two or three people on an Uber ride.

Audrey Tang: You also want to bring flying cars.

David Plouffe: Well, eventually.

Audrey Tang: Vertical.

David Plouffe: Well, right. Our deal is, "Let’s look at every way to make our cities more local." But I think that this is a really important bridge to that autonomous future, maybe flying cars. In understanding that, the way you regulate that, as every law around the world has, understand some of the differences between ride‑sharing and how we’ve traditionally thought of for‑hire transportation.

David Plouffe: Basically, the market’s going to grow. The way people get around cities changes. We’re growing a pot. We’re not to dividing a pot. Again, I think that it sends the message of being friendly towards innovation, understanding that this device is so powerful. It’s creating a tremendous amount of work, and in our case, also changing the way people get around.

David Plouffe: It’s really interesting, because our tech’s just not living in the cloud, monetizing from above. So much of the economic activity is staying on the ground here and improving people’s lives.

David Plouffe: I hope that, as you guys think through how to regulate ride‑sharing, obviously you’ll look at what other countries have done, and work out an extension here. But we are really concerned with where the courts are. They’re thinking about doing astronomical fines for people just driving their own car, trying to make a little bit of extra money.

David Plouffe: I think that would be a really damaging both signal to send, but also a terrible thing for those people. They’re retirees, they’re teachers, they’re entrepreneurs, just trying to make a little extra money. Hopefully, that won’t come to pass.

David Plouffe: Our hope is we can figure out the regulatory situation, so then we can sit down with legal and development and say, "OK, let’s think about mobility, transportation, economic growth, your activity, economically, for retirees, for women." Those can be the conversations we’re having with government right now in those places, once we get through these core regulatory questions.

David Plouffe: They’re not that complicated. At the end of the day, I would look at ride‑sharing as pretty much a known thing now. They’re just the normal issues that we have to go through.

Audrey Tang: To very quickly recap, a year ago I was helping to facilitate a multi‑stakeholder discussion here on the vTaiwan platform, about exactly the regulatory structure that you talk about. We had thousands of participants. It was the Uber drivers, UberX drivers, and also traditional taxi drivers, but also people who are not yet drivers for any one side but want to think deliberately about this topic together.

Audrey Tang: Then we had, of course, a lot of division of ideas, but because we employ a Pol.is platform that takes the principle component of everybody’s ideas and present it in an easy‑to‑understand, two‑dimensional form. People still arrive at some consensus, very strong, like 95 percent consensus.

Audrey Tang: Then we made the regulatory auditory structure based on people’s block consensus, even among people who are divisive. One of the consensus was basically taking Uber as a source of inspiration, saying that it is true that we have a way to help taxis that does not depend on the car having any yellow paintings, any medallions, or any other markers. It really is a new way to call a car. That’s true.

Audrey Tang: The other innovation that Uber brings is this 5‑star system that let’s not just the passengers, but also the drivers, who can also have their reputation for the clients. I think these are some things that are very inspirational and that we do want to learn from.

Audrey Tang: Just last month we passed what we call the e‑taxi regulation, or more formerly taxi driver certification regulation structure, so that any company who just want to introduce this non‑painted yellow, non‑medallion fleet can apply to the ministry of transportation, and also operate just exactly like Uber with this 5‑ star and with the app that shows the whole license plate number, the driver’s name, and so on, so that everybody has a transparency and the record of what exactly goes where.

Audrey Tang: I thank you for bringing the inspiration. I do agree that it is the consensus of, regardless of who they’re working from, that we do have a regulatory structure for this, and now we do have. Of course, if Uber Taiwan is willing to register as one of the fleets, that would be perfect. I don’t know.

David Plouffe: We’re not a taxi company, and no one regulates us in the entire world. We are a tech company, and the transportation that’s provided ‑‑ criminal, and driving checks on the drivers, like insurance, vehicle requirements, all that’s part of the regulations around the world. But understanding the other advancement is not rates, it’s a safety that’s happening on the trip, full GPS tracking, no anonymity...

Audrey Tang: These are in our regulations, as well.

David Plouffe: Right, but again, to suggest that we should register as a taxi company is not the way it’s been done anywhere else in the world. It will create too high of barriers to entry.

Audrey Tang: Tell me why.

David Plouffe: Someone who just wants to drive their own Toyota Prius for four weeks ought to be able to do that in their own car, as long as they go through the right checks. I think that really the tension here ‑‑ and I appreciate that you guys have looked at this and made some adjustments ‑‑ is trying to figure out how to shoe‑horn what we do into all the taxi regulations, that has never been, from our view, a good outcome or a satisfying discussions.

David Plouffe: It’s more about how do we fashion new regulations. By the way, a lot of people have looked at how to re‑regulate things with the taxi industry. Whether it’s given them more supply flexibility or pricing inflexibility, there’s a lot of things that we think make sense. Our view is this ought to be opened up and barriers to entry reduced for everybody.

Audrey Tang: We also put surge pricing into the regulation. We really took everything that you did and...

David Plouffe: But again, to basically say a teacher or a retiree, someone should go through a tremendous amount of hoops to drive their own car for a few hours a week, that’s where I think the tension is.

Audrey Tang: Well, they just take four hours to get a professional driver’s license. It’s not that much. It costs I think less than $100 US. This is not a huge or a tremendous amount.

Audrey Tang: Indeed, there’s nothing in our new regulation that says they must drive full time or they must drive exclusively in business hours, or anything like that. I still fail to appreciate where is the hoops.

David Plouffe: Well, no. I think getting a professional drivers’ license, I think registering with a taxi company, these things I think are inconsistent with where you see platforms like Uber. It’s not just Uber. There will be other ride‑sharing companies. Ecosystems emerge around it that really are interesting part of creating even a stronger entrepreneurial class here.

David Plouffe: I think that’s where the issue is. We’re happy to share some ideas with you more specifically about what we’d like to see here that would enable what we do, than have this threat of...my understanding is it’s closer to a $1 million US fine for drivers.

Audrey Tang: For not obtaining a professional license, yes?

David Plouffe: That, from a proportional standpoint, there’s nothing like it in the world. It would be the most extreme situation in the entire world that we’ve ever seen, and we’ve seen a lot. (laughs)

Audrey Tang: I think we dialed it down from the France fines, which was more than that. The French, I think it’s slightly higher, maybe 10 percent higher.

David Plouffe: We have a very good business in France, but again, it makes it harder for someone who’s just looking to augment their income. You have all the safety requirements involved. We’re not suggesting that. I think that there’s a misconception that we don’t want to be regulated. We’re regulated in many places around the world and believe that’s appropriate.

Audrey Tang: Right, so the main contention is just to obtain professional driver’s license. You would like drivers to not obtain professional driver’s license, because it costs too much or...

David Plouffe: For someone who’s just working, they’re not going to make this a career, and maybe they’re doing it just for a period of time...we have a lot of students in the summer time. All over the world, people just drive for a few weeks in December, on the holidays.

David Plouffe: We are doing, as we do elsewhere, criminal checks, driver checks, insurance checks, the vehicle requirements, all things that we think are appropriate. The notion of someone having to then commit to become a professional driver, go to different government offices, that’s something that generally we see as a deterrent.

David Plouffe: Again, our view is citizens going out and making a little bit of extra money, while you’re still ensuring public safety, is a wonderful thing. Most people are, all over the world, not as satisfied as they’d like to be with their income situation. In some cases, they just need a little bit more, whether that’s over a period of time or whether it’s episodic.

David Plouffe: That’s where our philosophy comes in. It’s a very strong principle that there’s ways to do the regulations that ensure safety ‑‑ things like insurance, things like vehicle requirements ‑‑ that have lower barriers of entry, so the people are able to...without taking a long time. Within a week, they get on the road.

Audrey Tang: As for the Ministry of Transport, from what I’ve been personally through to obtain a driver’s license, it’s really not more one week’s time. There is one exam, I think, one written exam, and that’s about it.

葉寧: Yeah. It’s not required to be a professional driver. We called the taxi‑driver license a free occupation. That’s meaning you don’t have to get full‑time job. You might have a certain specification, that you have met skill...

Audrey Tang: Right, it’s just certifying that you have more skill than a non‑professional driver. It’s a skill‑based examination, mostly about understanding the duties and responsibilities as a professional driver. That’s not a very high barrier of entry, personally speaking.

Audrey Tang: If it is, and if it does cause a problem, of course the Ministry of Transport can look into streamlining the process. But, from my personal experience, it just involved going into one single office of the Ministry of Transport. It’s not multiple government agencies. If that’s the only barrier that’s preventing the current Uber drivers from obtaining their license, I’m sure that we can streamline the process.

David Plouffe: I appreciate that sentiment, and we look forward to more discussion about that. I think that’s important, because the model is really based on the ability...again, driving is something most of us can do. The technology has made it even easier for someone to turn on their phone, turn on their car, and make a little bit of money.

David Plouffe: What we see is there’s plenty of people...we only want our platform to work for people, so, "You know what? This is how I’m going to spend most of my time and this is going to be my major source of income," it’s certainly going to work for drivers like that and partners.

David Plouffe: But the real growth comes from people who are just doing this in a very supplemental way and in understanding that there’s ways to provide regulations that give the public confidence in public safety, but also understanding that to have somebody who could be making additional money for a period of time not able to do that, that’s a personal tragedy for them. Their lives will be improved...

David Plouffe: The other thing is, you want to...and I know this can sometimes be counterintuitive, but the larger ride‑sharing gets, the better effect you’re going to have in terms of reducing congestion. Why? No matter where somebody is in the Greater Taipei area, they know they’re going to be able to get a car in two or three minutes. When they know that’s the case, they use their car less.

David Plouffe: Ultimately, we don’t have carpooling yet in Taipei, which we have in many parts of the world, what we call UberPOOL. I think the big public policy benefit is convincing people now not just to leave their car, but they’re willing to share a ride with somebody using technology to match their route...

Audrey Tang: Sure, sure.

David Plouffe: That’s the flywheel you want. If, through barriers of entry, you’re limiting the supply, it’s not just denying people the opportunity to make money. The whole system falls apart.

Audrey Tang: There is already ride‑sharing communities, usually around commutes to universities, and so on, in Taiwan. So far, there’s been no for‑profit operators, because the law was not allowing app‑based car dispatch.

Audrey Tang: Now with the new regulation that was just passed last month, we’re now taking applications. We are now basically saying these are the professional drivers who, as we said, maybe they’re riding on the street and then contributing to congestion, because there’s no planned algorithm...

David Plouffe: To make that efficient.

Audrey Tang: ...to make that efficient. We also have local and maybe non‑local technology companies who are willing to work with these fleets, to make e‑fleets that serve those under‑served areas or the areas that have a lot of congestion. That’s already happened as of a couple of weeks ago. We’re now taking our first batch of applications.

Audrey Tang: We do want to, of course, make the roads congestion‑free and eventually move to a more autonomous or semi‑autonomous cycle, although I think the rides of your Otto line, the long‑haul trucks, with what we call software‑defined rails, will probably happen first. That’s easier and contributes more to the carbon neutral footprint of the whole traffic industry.

Audrey Tang: All this, we can agree in principle, and we are already putting them in effect.

David Plouffe: I think figuring out a way to remove this threat of massive fines on drivers who are just local citizens trying to make a little bit of money, but also the notion...we are a technology company, and again we believe that transportation that’s provided, there’s a smart way to regulate that, but to really enable this to flourish.

David Plouffe: UberPOOL is something that only works when you’ve got enough liquidity. Using technology, in some of our major cities now, 50 percent of the people who use Uber are not getting in the back seat by themselves. They’re carpooling, particularly the younger generation.

Audrey Tang: Sure. UberPOOL is not in Taiwan though. I knew it from Paris.

David Plouffe: So, you’ve used it in Paris?

Audrey Tang: I’ve used it in Paris, yeah.

David Plouffe: It’s great, because really since the early ’70s, we’ve talked about how, as a global community, we can approach carpooling on scale, and it’s never really worked. There’s casual carpools, as you mentioned, but we’re starting to see, on scale, a pretty big behavior change around people’s willingness to share rides.

David Plouffe: With technology, you’re only inconveniencing them a few minutes. They get a half‑price ride, and most of them our drivers tend to gravitate towards fuel‑efficient vehicles. Eventually, those will all be electric, if the price comes down.

David Plouffe: Again, I think that bridge is important to autonomy, because the autonomous future is going to rely on, obviously, technology being close to perfect, the regulatory structure being in place, infrastructure changes.

David Plouffe: It also is going to have to be behavior of people, that they’re comfortable doing that. Again, that’s where we think what we do, and other companies, is an important bridge.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, sure. I agree 100 percent. I think we’re in violent agreement, here.

David Plouffe: Except on the details, because what you’re talking about, I don’t think is consistent with ride‑sharing being able to flourish. What I like to do is get back to you with some specific suggestions.

Audrey Tang: Sure, of course. My main agenda is just to listen to your side of the story, as complete as possible. I’m just saying that currently you were comparing a driver, a part‑time driver maybe, applying to Uber for background checks, for everything, and getting an Uber driver’s license, for lack of a better term.

David Plouffe: They have to have a driver’s license, obviously.

Audrey Tang: Sure, but an Uber driver’s license.

David Plouffe: ...with our driving check.

Audrey Tang: And 4.5 stars. Then, we’re comparing it to applying to a local authority of the Ministry of Transport, to go through very similar background checks and criminal records, and then pass a written exam about the responsibility of professional drivers.

Audrey Tang: I’m saying it’s comparable, but you’re saying that it’s not. I would like to hear more.

David Plouffe: Our evidence suggests that things like written exams...again, in the year 2016, with technology...

Audrey Tang: It’s computerized, but anyway.

David Plouffe: Going into offices...I think recognizing that you can accomplish those same things using technology and a more streamlined process. That’s based on a lot of experience about someone who’s just looking to do this in a very part‑time capacity, and maybe for a short period of time, is willing to do.

David Plouffe: It’s a different set of requirements when someone...although, I think that’s a good opportunity to look at what we could do to deregulate it for the taxi industry, too, to give them more maybe price flexibility, supply flexibility.

David Plouffe: Generally, this is good for drivers. Most of the people driving on the Uber platform are just average citizens. They’re not professional drivers. But for professional drivers now, whether it’s taxi, limo, or truck, the nice thing is now they have another option.

Audrey Tang: Exactly.

David Plouffe: It’s not just choice for consumers who ride it. It’s a choice for consumers who drive.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, sure. When I was in Paris, one of the cars that I went into, I wouldn’t even call it an Uber car, because they have five different smart phones on the dashboard.

Audrey Tang: It does give the driver more choice. I do agree with that.

David Plouffe: That’s a great point, because really, for ride‑sharing to flourish, what you’ll find is those drivers will have our app open, another ride‑sharing app, two delivery apps open, whoever has work for them at the moment. It’s not an exclusive arrangement. They are not necessarily viewing themselves as a professional driver. They’re just using their app and their phone to make a little bit of money.

David Plouffe: Some of that delivering people, some of that delivering goods. As you know, we’re doing food delivery in many places.

Audrey Tang: This goes back to the open API idea. If we do have an open API of those other ride‑sharing dispatches, for the delivery and everything, then we can aggregate it, so that the driver...

David Plouffe: So you’re saying you want the government to basically do the...

Audrey Tang: No, anyone could.

David Plouffe: Again, I think that that sense of, I guess the term is multi‑apping, that sense of making it even easier for people to make money on their own schedule, it’s incredibly important to have a regulatory structure that supports that at the foundation.

David Plouffe: Without providing the right kind of regulations is...I think what we see here is maybe some adjustments, but it’s basically grafting some things onto existing taxi regulations. Again, we haven’t seen ‑‑ in the rest of the world ‑‑ that work.

David Plouffe: What’s worked is brand‑new regulations that understand what ride‑sharing is and what it isn’t. Again, we’re not suggesting we should not be regulated. We think smart regulation makes a lot of sense. Obviously Taiwan is unique, like every country is, but we’ve got a lot of good examples of how other countries in the region and elsewhere have handled it.

Audrey Tang: We did look at all of it last year, when we were making the civil deliberation about what we call the private, for‑profit driving. At the end of the day, as you said, it’s making some more money, so it is for profit. Otherwise, it’s just a community carpool.

David Plouffe: That’s right, but I think that’s what is required for people to engage in the activity. They obviously want to make a little more money on their schedule, but the societal benefits that come out that are pretty incredible.

David Plouffe: We’re starting to change the way we see people think about moving around in cities. They don’t use us for everything. They use it to fill in gaps. Some people use us three or four times a month, but those three or four times a month, they know, wherever they are in the city, they can press a button and get a ride in two or three minutes.

David Plouffe: They use it in conjunction with public transportation and taxis. It all fits together. But what we do is unique.

Audrey Tang: I do agree. It’s making the pie larger, so to speak. It is providing people who wouldn’t normally be conveniently calling a taxi a way to participate in transportation, so they wouldn’t then have to drive their own car and things like that, so I agree 100 percent.

Audrey Tang: This is something that we can streamline. I don’t think it’s paper‑based nowadays to take a written exam. When I say written, I just mean written. It can be like e-written.

Audrey Tang: I think our main difference still lies in the view of the regulation we’re passing the previous month, which you described as grafting it onto an existing law. As far as I understand ‑‑ of course I wasn’t Minister of Transportation, but I did participate in initial sketch of the regulation ‑‑ it is, in our idea, a new section, and it’s not shared with the existing taxis.

Audrey Tang: The whole idea is not to convert existing taxis or existing fleets. It’s to set up a diversified, a different fleet that doesn’t have a medallion, that isn’t painted yellow, and is exclusively app‑based.

Audrey Tang: We almost say that it has to be paid exclusively through e‑payment. We have a sunrise period. For initial year or two, they can still take cash, but eventually they will all switch, which keeps their audit trail. That can make your case, also. (laughs)

Audrey Tang: I do agree on all the principles. Whether or not Uber wants to work with one of the fleets who did register and become the technology supplier, like you did in China, in the Mainland, I believe, or you want to register a local company. It’s your choice, of course, but it’s the regulatory structure.

David Plouffe: That’s a fleet approach, as opposed to individuals using their own car and using this technology.

Audrey Tang: Well they can join a co-op fleet.

David Plouffe: That’s where some of the tension is. As we look at it, we don’t think what’s on the books here and this threat of a massive fine on individuals is consistent with scaling. It’s not just for us, but for others. If it’s OK, I’d love to get back to you with a little bit more detail on that, the arbitrage between what’s existing and the issue.

David Plouffe: Again, I think that sense of fleets, taxi companies, that has never been part of the regulations that really work well, that really allow ride‑sharing to flourish, and the ecosystem around it. We appreciate your perspective, which is you understand the value of this, but sometimes we have the difference between...because the devil is in details, as they say.

David Plouffe: Sometimes very small things that may seem terrible intrusive, our evidence‑based history suggests that we just won’t be able to see the scale that you’re looking for. We have violent agreement I think about the shared goals. I think the means to allow this to happen are still some things we got to work through.

Audrey Tang: You mentioned fleet size and you mentioned the fines. I think there is no restriction of the minimum size of the fleet in our new e‑taxi regulation. It could be just five cars deciding to share riders among themselves. Of course, I do agree the liquidity and the critical mass in a certain region is important.

Audrey Tang: We do want to work with regional cities to set up fleets that are designed for maybe the night time, maybe for special needs, maybe for elderly, and things like, like special service fleets, which is why we call them fleets. They are really just individual people who passed the official drivers license and want to serve that particular public cause.

Audrey Tang: Again, I don’t really know which of these models will work, but we have changed the pricing structure so that they can charge more, even on surge pricing. We think there are some economic incentives for them to participate in this kind of new fleet.

Audrey Tang: As for fines, I think this is not something the administration has proposed. If I remember correctly, it’s the legislators. Probably just they decide, and I’m not in connection with that legislator. I just read public information, as you did, but public information says that it’s to be charged proportional to the capital of the fleet company, which is why I think the press called it anti‑Uber. You do have a market cap that is huge, so it’s proportional in the sense of industry proportional.

David Plouffe: I think, rather than putting historically large fines on individuals, let’s find a way to craft regulations that work for our shared goals and more mobility solutions, and ride‑sharing, of course. Again, this is not that complex of an issue.

Audrey Tang: No, it’s not.

David Plouffe: It needs something, I think, but the principle of making it easy for individuals, and not to think about this from a taxi fleet perspective, is really what is required to have all the benefits that flow from ride‑sharing.

Audrey Tang: Sure, and I think maybe we all agree, so if you do have other suggestions to the details...

David Plouffe: Absolutely.

Audrey Tang: ...of how we’re contributing, then we can talk about it here or we can follow up.

David Plouffe: I’d like to reflect on this conversation, and whether it’s as a follow‑up call, let me put some thoughts on paper, "Here’s what we see in e‑taxi proposal, here’s where the tension is, and some suggestion for how to move forward."

David Plouffe: I think Taipei, and really the entire country, is going to be such a great example of how ride-sharing can really help. You think about the government goals of stronger economic growth. Ride-sharing surprised me. Six years ago, we wouldn’t have thought we’d be here in Taipei talking to you, that ride-sharing can be a pretty important economic growth engine.

David Plouffe: But also, from a mobility standpoint... as it turns out, there was huge gaps in our transportation ecosystem. I certainly didn’t have a full appreciation for it until you begin to see the service really explode, and you see how it’s changing, in some way, how people move around.

David Plouffe: Millennials, if they had their choice, would rather not drive. This next generation, Generation Z, probably doesn’t want to have to learn how to drive, so we have to have enough transportation options, I think, to support those desires.

David Plouffe: And then what you get out of that is obviously what we all want, which is fewer cars on the road, and those on the road, have more people in them, and as many of those as possible be emissions-free or better for the environment.

David Plouffe: But I appreciate you taking the time. It was helpful to hear your perspective on this, and I hope that we can figure out a solution that works for the government, and works for us, and that’s generally what we’ve seen around the world, is this is not a divide that can’t be bridged.

Audrey Tang: As a technical geek, I’m more interested in those autonomous long-haul trucks, and really, the flying cars -- the VTOLs in Project Elevate that you’re bringing in.

Audrey Tang: But these things have a distinctly different theme compared to what you just described, right? We don’t have people who drive helicopters for fun, a few hours or a few minutes during their business hours. It has to be something professional, that there really is no question around that, right?

David Plouffe: Sure.

Audrey Tang: And then for professional truck drivers, we of course established a even more strict regulatory structure, and we’re not saying that people can just hop on a random truck and drive them home as amateurs, like "anybody can drive a truck." I don’t think that’s true, right?

Audrey Tang: Even for automated truck driving, you’d still have to have the local part of it. Once they finish the highway, there has to be somebody who drives it to the local depot.

David Plouffe: Right now, the technology is more for the longer stretches of highway, yes.

Audrey Tang: Right, so at least for the next, I would say, 5-10 years, we have to work on the way to how to switch from autopilot to the local roads.

Audrey Tang: Again, I wouldn’t really trust it to a random person who just want to drive a truck for fun, even though they may have an amateur driver’s license.

David Plouffe: I think that’s right, but I think there’s a big distinction between that and someone getting in their Toyota Prius, who may be a teacher, or a student, or a small business person and saying, "Yeah, I’m going to make a little bit of money for a period of time."

David Plouffe: We need to finding a way to encourage that. There are some distinctions, I think.

Audrey Tang: Right, so what I’m saying is that in the long term, to achieve our emission-free goal, your next steps would be more robotic-based. I do agree, and I think we can come up with innovative regulatory structures to make that happen.

Audrey Tang: But in that future, actually, the habit that you are now building, in the sense of trusting amateur drivers, is actually counterproductive to the future you’re describing, because at that time, we will need another professional class that can be the interface between the robots and the public.

David Plouffe: But I do think this period, just in terms of passenger transportation, to get people more used to not buying their own cars, not using as much, sharing transportation, getting used to carpooling, that’s clearly going to be an important bridge to autonomous driving.

Audrey Tang: Yes. But then, according to your plan, you will still need them to get professional licenses as either robotic operators or augmented pilots at that time.

David Plouffe: Well, we’ll see. I don’t know if that’s true or not.

Audrey Tang: That’s in your business plan.

David Plouffe: I don’t know if that’s true in cars, right? I think flying cars are a different issue than autonomous cars that are on our surface streets.

Audrey Tang: So maybe they will become guides, like guided-tour operators?

David Plouffe: Well, the future’s going to be interesting, but what we know is right in front of us, is let’s make ride-sharing work here in Taiwan, right?

Audrey Tang: Sure.

David Plouffe: Minister, I appreciate the time.

Audrey Tang: I’m very happy that we get to exchange our views candidly.

David Plouffe: Yep. Always better than the alternative, right?

Audrey Tang: Yeah, exactly.

David Plouffe: All right. Thank you.

Audrey Tang: Cheers.

David Plouffe: I do think there are some more details that we can work out. I will ask the local team to prepare materials and send them over to you.

Audrey Tang: Sure. Just note that everything you send my way will be made public.

David Plouffe: That’s fine.