Electric Dreams

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A short article in Autoweek, mentioning Volkswagen's plans to sell Chinese-built cars in North America, includes this photo of Santanas on the assembly line:

The Santana is a continuation of the second-generation Passat. It is the seventh generation that VW wants to build in China and sell here. Still, seeing brand-new Santanas got my wheels turning.

BOXY, BUT GOOD

One of the reasons I'm so fond of my 1981 Toyota Cressida is its crisp styling. In the Eighties, cars gradually began to turn into jelly beans. They're becoming more distinctive, but the days of simple, clean, functional lines seem to be long gone.

What a pleasant surprise, to find that Shanghai Volkswagen is currently producing this nice boxy 'throwback'...

The business opportunity here is obvious. In car-hungry China, the tooling for older models is put to good use, producing lower-cost alternatives. Just imagine -- a deal could be struck to import these freshly-manufactured 'old' cars (minus their engines, fuel tanks etc) to an assembly facility, where they could be completed as electric vehicles.

Would you pay $25,000? Sure, an electric Santana might not do great in crash testing, but you'd never have to purchase fuel for it, and it would be a lot simpler and less expensive to maintain than any internal combustion vehicle.

Santana: I'm Winning

There are rumours of older Subarus (yes, the boxy ones) being produced in China as well, and that's something I'll have to look into.

By the way? The second-generation Passat, in three-door hatch form, was sold here as the Quantum. Ring any bells?

For whatever reason, the Santana didn't sell all that well here in the United States. Chances are that many new-car buyers wouldn't recognize it, especially without VW badging and those huge US-market bumpers. It would be new, and different.

Could this be the production version of the Tellurian Motors Defiant? Would Volkswagen be interested in selling electric cars in China -- and elsewhere?



Phil Smith
July 24, 2007

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