Without secure and standardized car database APIs, catching up to the speed and scale of the car app market will be a daunting task.
Although we’re seeing more headlines about big tech bringing the apps we know and love to our cars, the idea of apps for cars goes far beyond repurposing existing services for in-vehicle infotainment systems.
The automotive industry is changing to accommodate more vehicle connectivity, zero-emission targets, and improved infrastructure. For that reason, governments and mobility businesses are looking to unlock new business models and revenue streams through apps powered by vehicle telematics.
But there’s one problem: Building apps for cars is complex and costly, and many organizations don’t have the in-house technical resources to do it themselves.
That’s where a car database API comes in. Let’s explore how developers can use these APIs to build vehicle solutions faster.
How do developers use a car database API?
A car database API helps developers retrieve standardized datasets about vehicles with different brands and models. The types of data you get ultimately depend on the API a developer chooses to use. Some static car database APIs focus on data like vehicle specifications, historical data on vehicle maintenance and market value, or
On the other hand, dynamic car APIs like Smartcar give developers a simplified way to access dynamic real-time car data that enables consumer apps to engage with users. This API offers real-time data and remote control of specific vehicle functions. These APIs are essential for mobility apps and services that need live vehicle interaction or driver personalization.
10 car database APIs for developers
Here are 10 car database APIs that simplify data retrieval so you can expedite your application’s time-to-market.
- Smartcar
- Apple CarPlay and Android Auto
- CarMD
- CIS Automotive
- CarAPI.app
- VehicleDatabases.com
- Edmunds Vehicle API
- API-Ninjas
- CarQuery API
- AutoData.net API
Smartcar
Smartcar is a car API platform for connected cars — which are vehicles shipped with built-in embedded telematics or internet connectivity to communicate with IoT devices. The technology allows developers to easily integrate their mobility apps and services with their customers’ vehicles. Developers use Smartcar’s API to integrate with 177 million cars worldwide across over 40 brands.
Developers can use comprehensive SDKs in different languages and frameworks to integrate their apps with Smartcar’s API. What sets Smartcar apart from other car API providers on this list is that the platform gives apps a pre-built OAuth 2.0 authorization flow that collects consent from drivers and allows the application to retrieve information and send commands to vehicles.
Apple CarPlay and Android Auto
Apple CarPlay and Android Auto allow developers to optimize specific categories of applications for a car’s built-in infotainment system so drivers can pull up apps on their car’s dashboard screen. These apps are relatively restricted regarding how much developers can customize UI templates by Apple and Android.
You can develop apps for Apple CarPlay if they serve the purpose of providing drivers with audio entertainment, communication, navigation, parking, food ordering, and EV charging. Android Auto also supports other app categories like video apps and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions to communicate with connected devices like garage doors and home security systems.
CarMD
CarMD is a car database API that gives developers access to data on a vehicle’s repair and maintenance needs. The API benefits those in the automotive aftermarket industry, parts manufacturers, distributors, and more. If you’re building an app for vehicle repairs, you can use the CarMD API to give drivers and fleet operators diagnostic reports, list repair parts and cost calculations, and access warranty or safety recall information. The API endpoints you can access with CarMD include VIN decoding, maintenance lists, diagnostics, and upcoming repairs.
CIS Automotive
Competitive Intelligence Solution’s car database API is used by car dealers, brokers, marketers, researchers, and more to analyze trends in vehicle sales and supply. The data covers 650M vehicles and 40,000 dealerships from 2016 onwards. You can use this data in your mobility apps and services to get vehicle valuations, retrieve vehicle recall information, or conduct competitive analysis on dealerships and vehicle market share. Developers are recommended to access CIS Automotive’s Python library and use Python bindings for all API endpoints.
CarAPI.app
CarAPI.app provides developers with a REST + JSON API to access car data like a vehicle’s year, make, model, and trims. It includes data from 80,000 vehicles sold in the US between 1940 to today. These data points make the API a suitable option for developers looking to build applications that need historical vehicle information. Unlike the Smartcar API, CarAPI.app is primarily focused on static vehicle data rather than dynamic vehicle interactions or EV battery capabilities.
VehicleDatabases.com
VehicleDatabases.com offers developers several automotive APIs to decode VINs, scan license plates, view vehicle history, access vehicle market values, and more. This data is suitable for developers building applications based on extensive data extraction, such as solutions for auto parts, selling vehicles, and car financing. While these APIs offer broad coverage of vehicle information to identify vehicle specifications and historical information, they lack the real-time vehicle connectivity and action-based control offered by the Smartcar API.
Edmunds Vehicle API
The Edmunds Vehicle API gives developers access to a wide range of automotive datasets directly related to a vehicle — such as vehicle makes, models, trims, styles, and maintenance schedules. Their Javascript SDK is designed to simplify the process of getting started. This API is well-suited for developers who want to get vehicle specs and maintenance schedules, determine the trade-in value of used vehicles, or get consumer ratings. Like other static vehicle APIs on the list, it doesn’t enable regular data polling, which impacts the ability to build engaging consumer apps.
API-Ninjas
API-Ninjas offers a car database API designed for retrieving specific vehicle models based on parameters like manufacturer, year, fuel type, and more. This API works for developers who want quick access to data on models for comparison purposes. Unlike Smartcar, which enables developers to communicate and coordinate action directly with connected vehicles, API-Ninjas focuses on vehicle specification queries without providing access to live vehicle data.
CarQuery API
CarQuery API is a JSON-based API that provides detailed information about cars and trucks, like the year, make, model, and trim. Developers can download the CarQuery source vehicle database to implement it directly onto their website or software application. From there, you can select a vehicle’s model to retrieve data that updates annually, quarterly, or frequently, depending on the plan you choose.
What to look for in a car database API?
Vehicles return a lot of data. A connected car can generate 25 to 67 billion data points daily — and a lot of this data isn’t going to be relevant for most use cases.
You want to equip your developers with a vehicle API that cuts through the noise and ensures seamless and efficient access to standardized data for your client’s application. Here are a few factors to consider:
Ease of implementation
Regardless of what your typical coding language is, you need to give your app developers a frictionless experience when integrating data into the app. Work with data providers that give you clear documentation, or better yet, comprehensive SDKs and pre-built components that you can work into your app structure. To keep your project timelines on track, you’ll also want to work with a point of contact that can provide customer support, educate you on brand-specific best practices, and ensure implementation success.
For instance, to build the fleet financing app, Zeti, developers needed a convenient way to build their data architecture on Azure Static Web Apps for a totally serverless application. A stellar developer experience was necessary for the success of their innovative solution.
“Smartcar had an excellent developer experience, with example code already on GitHub that we could clone, a great SDK and an API-first structure,” said Chelsea Dowling, Head of Operations at Zeti.
“Our usual language isn’t Node, but because of our serverless architecture and the excellent SDK available, we decided to create a standalone Node.js application that integrates with the rest of our platform over API,” she adds.
When coupled with strong customer support throughout the implementation process, Zeti launched its pay-per-mile fleet financing solution using solely Smartcar data. You need a similar API that can provide developers the flexibility and speed to meet client needs in various application environments.
Brand compatibility
If the app you’re building is going to communicate with vehicles across multiple makes and models, you’ll want to make sure you’re working with data that is standardized and reliable for all those different brands.
Telematics data from each OEM will have varied response types, latencies, and service interruptions. Your app needs a consistent source of data that is optimized for these differences. Ideally, you’ll want to work with a data partner that can work with you on brand-specific edge cases and make it easier for you to support more brands in the future.
Vehicle owner privacy and security
The uncomfortable truth is that many automotive data providers sell you car data shared by drivers without consent. Consumers today are becoming increasingly weary of this, leading to more joint efforts between legislators and organizations to ensure the privacy of mobility data.
If you want to be a trusted partner to leading mobility businesses, you’ll want to work with data that is obtained ethically and communicated clearly with consumers. Smartcar surveyed 110 vehicle owners in the United States this year and discovered that drivers expect the following from the vehicle apps and services they use.
What mobility apps can you build with Smartcar?
Smartcar has the SDKs automotive dev shops need to build groundbreaking apps across use cases like:
- Smart EV charging: Use Smartcar’s EV API to retrieve a vehicle’s state of charge, charge limit, charging status, and more. Apps can also proactively set EV charge limits and start and stop a charging session.
- Car sharing: Apps like Turo use the lock and unlock API to allow hosts to remotely share digital car keys with guests.
- Pay-per-mile services: Auto insurance providers and state governments use Smartcar’s odometer API to verify mileage for pay-per-mile road taxes and usage-based insurance.
- Predictive maintenance: Bumper is an example of an app that uses Smartcar’s vehicle attributes, VIN, tire pressure, odometer, and fuel tank level to provide proactive maintenance recommendations to drivers.
How to build an EV route planning app with the Smartcar API
EV charging businesses use Smartcar to implement features for discovering nearby EV charging stations and route planning without...
🚫 Hardware installations or unreliable smartphone telematics
🚫 Non-consensual vehicle data-sharing
In this example, you can use Smartcar's location and state of charge endpoint to determine how far an EV can travel before recharging. You can also use these data points to surface nearby chargers.
We'll assume that you've already created a Snartcar account, obtained your client ID and secret, and implemented Smartcar Connect into your application.
- Use the vehicle’s access token to determine the current range.
- The GET /battery endpoint will return the current EV battery’s charge as both a percentage and a projected range provided by the vehicle manufacturer in kilometers.
- If your driver needs to know the nearest available charging station location, use the GET /location endpoint for the latest known location by latitude and longitude. Compare the current location to those of nearby charging locations to suggest a charger.
- Use services such as Google’s Distance Matrix API to calculate the distance between the vehicle's latest known location and the nearest charger.
- Some compatible vehicles on Smartcar also support the POST /navigation/destination so you can deliver the destination directly to the vehicle’s navigation system.
Why businesses go to market faster with the Smartcar API
Smartcar’s car API is the best choice for dev shops building car apps that:
- Offer actionable user-centric services: Whether it’s sharing digital car keys, scheduling EV charging, or measuring a vehicle’s carbon footprint, Smartcar’s API helps developer shops build consumer apps that are easy to use and adopt into day-to-day activities.
- Integrate with more than one car brand: Rolling Energy Resources (RER) works with utilities to power demand response with comprehensive EV load research. A car API platform helps RER gather data from various EVs to build insightful datasets.
- Gives customers the choice of consenting to shared data: Tolling solution, Emovis, launched a pay-per-mile road tax program for the state of Utah. Consent-based data collection helps Emovis ease digital privacy concerns for drivers participating in a new form of tax collection.
- Competes in a high-growth sector: Recurrent sped up production by 6 to 12 months and saved millions of engineering dollars by retrieving data with Smartcar’s API platform. This speed to market was important for them as a pre-seed startup in the EV battery software space that also had to account for the rapid growth in EV makes and models.
Smartcar’s API is used by mobility services in many industries, from auto insurance to EV charging, car sharing, and even web3! Create a free account to test the API out, or talk to our sales team today to learn more.
Vehicle brands, logos, and model names belong to their respective trademark holders and do not indicate endorsement or affiliation with Smartcar.
