William Santana Li
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Bill has a broad and deep range of experience from several global assignments in the automotive sector and a number of startups spanning over 18 years. During his career at Ford Motor Company, Bill held over 12 business and technical positions focused on 4 continents and cutting across each functional area in the company where he was the youngest senior executive worldwide.
These varying positions ranged from component, systems, and vehicle engineering with Visteon, Mazda, and Lincoln; to business & product strategy on the US youth market, India, and the emerging markets in Asia-Pacific and South America; as well as the financial turnaround of Ford of Europe. In addition, he was part of the management team of the AMAZON program, which established an all-new modular plant in Brazil in cooperation with the Tier 1 supply base. Subsequently, he served as Director of New Business Development and Mergers & Acquisitions.
In 1998, after internally securing $250 million of capital, Bill founded and served as Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of GreenLeaf LLC, a Ford Motor Company subsidiary that became a leading recycler of automotive components. Under his leadership, GreenLeaf LLC grew to a 600-employee operation with 20 locations worldwide and $150 million in sales.
After successfully establishing GreenLeaf, Bill was recruited by SOFTBANK Venture Capital to establish Model E Corporation as its President and CEO, a new car company where the “Subscribe and Drive” philosophy was first pioneered and implemented in California. He subsequently co-founded Build-To-Order Incorporated (BTO) as its President and CEO, a new car company based on the direct distribution of build-to-order products, where he secured financing from AK Steel, Deloitte & Touche, and TWR Group Limited. Bill has since founded Carbon Motors Corporation, and as its Chairman and CEO, has focused it on developing the world’s first purpose-built law enforcement patrol vehicle in support of Homeland Security.
Bill earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA in International Marketing from the University of Detroit Mercy in addition to studies at the University of California – Berkeley, Yale University, and Oxford University. He is also a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) and serves on the Board of Directors of the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education (GPEE). Bill is fluent in Spanish and conversant in Portuguese.
Carbon Council
Become a member and interact directly with Carbon team members.
Membership entitles you to participate in contests, surveys, a secure user's forum, formal and informal market research events, digital design reviews, pre-production customer drive evaluations and invitations to future corporate events. All qualified personnel are invited to participate in the council.
Pre-Orders
Our first year of production is limited and we're already accepting reservations. The more we receive, the sooner we are likely to make it to full-scale production. Configure yours today and don't be left behind.
