One of the first and most critical decisions you will make as a car sharing entrepreneur is whether to build or buy your technology stack. This choice directly impacts your startup costs, your time to market, and your long-term operational success.
In this lesson, we'll define the core components of a car sharing tech stack and compare the three main paths: building it yourself, buying a ready-made solution, or mixing both approaches.
A car sharing tech stack is the entire set of technologies that work together to run your service. From a user's perspective, it's simple: find a car on a map and unlock it with an app. Behind that single tap is a complex system built on three integrated pillars.
The telematics unit is the hardware bridge between the physical car and your digital platform. It streams real-time data (GPS location, fuel level, battery charge) and receives remote commands to unlock, lock, and deactivate the immobilizer.
The software is the central brain managing user registration, bookings, payments, and all data from your fleet.
Third is the user-facing app, the digital remote control where customers find, reserve, and unlock vehicles.
A smooth user journey depends on how well these three pillars work together.
The "build" approach means creating your own car sharing tech stack from scratch. Your team must engineer and integrate all three pillars: hardware, backend, and mobile apps for iOS and Android. You'll solve complex technical challenges like creating offline access methods (Bluetooth, RFID) for underground garages.
This path requires you to run 24/7 technical operations. That's why it's often considered by large, established operators with highly specific feature needs and the significant budget for a long development timeline. You're solely responsible for all monitoring, maintenance, and incident management. If your platform fails, your entire business stops.
The "buy" approach means partnering with an experienced technology provider. You launch with a tested platform that already includes all three integrated pillars: hardware, backend, and apps.
This path is ideal for startups and operators who want faster time to market with lower upfront costs. Instead of building software, you focus on integration and configuration. The provider handles all technical complexity, including 24/7 monitoring, incident management, and software updates.
The hybrid strategy involves buying the most complex components and building the parts you want to customize. For example, you might buy proven telematics hardware and backend, but build your own custom app. This gives you a reliable foundation while controlling the user experience.
Source: INVERS Success Story with CarlundCarla.de
Your choice depends on four key questions:
What is your main priority: speed or control?
Faster time to market means buying. Fully customized features mean building.
Where do you want to focus your capital?
On building a tech team, or on your fleet, marketing, and operations?
Who will manage reliability?
With a custom build, you're 100% responsible for maintenance, updates, and downtime. With a ready-made solution, the provider handles 24/7 operations.
What is your core business?
Is it technology or shared mobility? Buying lets you focus on serving customers. Building means you're also running a software development company.
Regardless of your path, long-term success depends on reliability. In shared mobility, reliability is the foundation of customer trust. When a customer walks to a car, they expect it to unlock every single time.
This reliability becomes more critical as you scale. A platform that works for 100 vehicles may fail at 1,000. A proven technology partner builds for this growth, managing constant software updates, security patches, and 24/7 monitoring so your service remains fast and stable.
The complete, integrated system of hardware (telematics), backend software (management platform), and user-facing software (mobile app) required to operate a shared mobility service.
For fully customized control. But expect large upfront investment, long development timeline, and total responsibility for 24/7 reliability.
For faster time to market, lower upfront costs, and proven reliability. Trade-off: less control over custom features.
For most startups and new operators, buying a market-ready solution is the safer and faster path. It lets you focus on fleet management and customer growth, rather than becoming a software development company.