Peter Trepp: Man of Yesterday and Tomorrow (Part II of II)

Part II: Man of Tomorrow...

Like millions of Americans, family man Peter Trepp has an Audi Q7 SUV parked in his driveway. However, it’s his other car that has heads turning...

The Pacific Palisades resident is one of only 450 Americans (#111, to be exact) driving the prototypical Mini E, the electric version of BMW’s popular Mini Cooper.

“I saw the car at the L.A. Auto Show in November 2008,” Trepp told the Pacific Palisades Patch. “I learned there was an application process. I thought to myself, Why not?”

There was a long application process online, questions such as ‘Why would I be interested?’ ‘What would make me a good fit?’ A lot of questions about my own personal interests, my career.”

Successfully passing that process, in May 2009, Trepp, the CFO of ServiceMesh, a West Los Angeles-based software company, became a “Motoring Trial Pioneer” (as his certificate states); one of a handful of Americans privileged to lease the prototype EV for a year. The electric car has only been tested out in three markets: Los Angeles, New York, and New Jersey (where BMW North America is based).

Ironically, the reason Trepp enrolled in the program had little to do with saving the planet.

“I’m not a tree hugger," he said, "although a lot of people assume that I am. Instead, I come at this with a passion for automobiles.”

Trepp has also inherited a healthy appetite for science. It's in his DNA...literally.

“My great-grandfather was an inventor,” Trepp said, evoking William Channel, founder of Channel Communications. “He invented all kinds of things for Ma Bell, including the installation caps (of porcelain and glass) which prevents electricity from jumping out of the telephone poles.

“I’m definitely a tinkerer,” Trepp continued. “But I really love cars. I’ve gone to the auto shows since I could remember. I have a belief that we’re going through an evolution, and that’s not too strong a word here, with the automobile. I don’t think it’ll be very long before we become [a society of electric cars]. Every car company is developing them.”

In February 2009, after Trepp learned that he was accepted into BMW’s experimental car program, he began a blog, petersminie.blogspot.com, and began posting his experiences, “everything from the technical stuff to...the practical. What does it feel like when you go out on the road...‘range anxiety:’ how far does this go?"

Three month later, his electric car was dispatched to a nearby dealership.  Trepp went into Bob Smith Mini in Calabasas, where he met with some representatives from BMW and took the car for a test drive on May 21, 2009. The next day, he got the car.

Initially, Trepp was granted a one-year lease on his car, which is valued at $1 million and which he leases from BMW for $850 a month.

“I noticed that BMW was reading my blog,” Trepp said, “and other companies, Nissan and Ford, were reading it as well.”

Trepp said that BMW does not in any way meddle or offer input regarding his blog. As an act of good faith, he has done publicity for the German car company, which has only advised him to talk from experience about the car. “I forced myself to get educated on it!” Trepp said. “They certainly didn’t attempt to influence my feelings in any way. I truly believe that electricity is the way to go.”

He has spoken to a variety of local and national press about his car, including the New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal. On television, he has appeared on local news segement and he was interviewed on CNBC Reports with Dennis Kneale.

“Some critics say that BMW motivated by tax credits in 2009, but the planning goes back a decade,” Trepp said. “Otherwise I don’t think they had an interest then to develop a cool electric car and they did it, as far as I’m concerned.”

Trepp finds the car so cool, he was eager to share the experience. He jumped into the passenger seat to allow the PaliPatch a spin around the block in the Mini E. The electric two-seater glided silently across Topoya and the only ostensible difference between this car and the fossil-fueled Mini Cooper (which this reporter used to drive fairly regularly) came when depressing the accelerator acted, which, in essence, acted like a brake. The car came to a complete stop, hugging the road as if running out of power, only to start up again with a tap of the pedal.

Trepp has been so satisfied with his Mini E, he jumped at the chance to extend his lease in May. He currently pays $600 a month to drive the car through May 2011.

“By renewing for one year, we are automatically on the list for the new BMW Active E car due out in summer 2011. This one has back seats!”

(Recently, Trepp learned that he might receive his Active E early, in the next few weeks.)

Since the beginning of his adventure with the program, Trepp has posted regular progress reports, from visiting the Calabasas dealership Bob Smith Mini for a test drive and onward. He has even weighed the pros and cons of the Mini E over its predecessor among road-tested cars powered by experimental lithium-ion batteries, the Tesla Roadster. 

He also regularly listed his “stats”––“Mileage: 4,948 (Not a big number, but I drive it daily. It’s only 6 miles to work). Average Range: 97 miles. Tickets: 0 (but a few close calls). Rides for Friends: Lost count but >100. Door Dings: Surprisingly 0. Impressed Valets: Many.”

Trepp has also posted about his inclusion in various newspaper articles and broadcast-news segments regarding his participation in the pioneer program, including a frustrating interview on CNBC Reports, on which host Kneale suggested that "charging my MINI E with electricity requires the burning of dirty coal in order to generate that same electricity. Unfortunately, he did not let me answer this question for which I was fully prepared.”

Based on some of the blog posts, which are often rah-rah, it may be hard for the cynics among us to believe that Trepp is not a shill for BMW. However, Trepp insists that BMW found his blog and has no sway over what he writes, and it is obvious when one meets him in person that the pure enthusiasm for his EV is genuine.

A 2009 Los Angeles Times article critical of the program pointed out discontent among the “pioneers” in the Mini E program  with BMW. Among the complaints echoed in the Times piece were the late arrival of cars reaching customers, a shortage of high-power cables  that subjected drivers to a deathly slow recharging process, delays in the installation of home charging equipment, costs related to upgrading their home's electrical service, and a thwarted tax credit. In June 2009, Chelsea Sexton, leader of the Santa Monica grass-roots EV advocacy group Plug In America, denounced BMW’s “muddled rollout of the Mini E," calling it a "botched" program. 

BMW was also accused of exploiting a loophole in the California Air Resources Board's Zero Emission Vehicle mandate. Automakers who sell more than 60,000 units a year in California must offer a certain number of high-efficiency vehicles to the public. However, because the rules do not distinguish between selling and leasing vehicles, BMW was accused of getting full credit for vehicles that would be on the road for only a year. (The hydrogen-powered Honda Clarity also benefits from those rules.)

The negative publicity evoked a failed program in the 1990s with GM's EV1. When GM no longer needed the cars to meet state requirements, the cars were taken from lessees and scrapped.

In response, Trepp dashed off a defensive letter to the Times, which he also posted on his blog.

He called the article’s claims “sharply unbalanced against the realities and positives of the program” and “a complete overstatement.” He said the article failed to mention that Sexton’s husband worked for EV rival Tesla.

“BMW has been extremely upfront with us about the program,” Trepp wrote. “…Were there delays? Yes. Could things have been done better? Yes. But I challenge anyone to run a program where you are putting out hundreds of prototype cars to consumers and get it done without hitches…Guess what? I have an amazing car that runs really well and is the envy of thousands of people (almost 21,000 on my blog as of today).”

However, since signing up for BMW’s electric-car experiment, Trepp has learned from program head Richard Steinberg, that “they’re never going to produce these cars.” Trepp said Steinberg explained to him that the batteries are too expensive to manufacture, and while the Mini Coopers sell at the $20,000 range, the Mini E’s price point would be around $50,000 right off of the bat, and they couldn’t justify selling the cars at that price.

The 500 Mini Es will eventually go back to BMW’s native country, Germany, where they will be pulled apart and studied on the university level for educational purposes.

“By 2012, with new batteries and new developments in electronics, the cost should go down," Trepp said.

Steinberg, in a conversation with the PaliPatch, does not deny that there were glitches in the pioneer program. The plan with the Active E is to correct some of the shortcomings BMW discovered about the Mini E. The Active E will be more expansive than the two-seat Mini E; a four-seater with more trunk space, where a better quality lithium battery embedded with improved technology (courtesy of Samsung and Basch in a joint venture) will be installed, and a liquid coolant and liquid heating system will flow through the 2011 model's battery pack to protect the battery from extreme weather conditions.

Steinberg added that the 2010 Mini E cars will not be dismantled for study after all, but "refurbished and reequipped for markets around the world to Europe and Asia as test cars."

However, overall, according to Steinberg, the company is pleased with both product and participants.

"One of the key takeaways from the program was how drivers dealt with 'range anxiety' [how long one could drive the car before it ran out of power]" Steinberg said. "Yet the notion you couldn’t live with a car like, that was dispelled pretty quickly...the range was more than sufficient and looked for more excuses to drive the Mini E. They drove it a lot more than anticipated."

Trepp has been something of the ideal pioneer for BMW.

"When we were looking to roll out the program, we were looking for some key people," Steinberg said. "Peter was actually the first delivery he made. We weren’t looking for celebrities, even though some celebrities are among the pioneers. We needed some people to use the car on a day to day basis, and Peter is a well-spoken guy with great connections.

"Peter and many others in the [pioneer] community like to share notes and like to defend the Mini E. Whenever there’s a story positive or negative, the general public has come across on what it's like to drive an EV on a day to day basis."

In the meantime, Trepp, a satisfied pioneer, is chomping at the bit to drive the new Active E. For now, he can consider himself part of an elite club that tools around in these BMW EVs, as of now, still novelty cars; a fraternity that includes fellow Palisadians and actors Tom Hanks and Billy Crystal, and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Gordon Brown.

“It’s pretty unique,” Trepp said. “I get stopped all the time. People ask me, ‘What is it? It’s a hybrid, right?’”