CarlundCarla expand van-sharing to 40 cities - and go electric

The Dresden start-up CarlundCarla has experienced continuous expansion since 2013 and is now present in 40 cities in Germany. In 2022, the company added its thousandth transporter to its fleet. This year, the team is opening rental stations in the 40th city. The fleet now includes the first electric transporters, which are to be further electrified.

“CarlundCarla has only existed for 11 years and has just outgrown its start-up phase,” describes Richard Vetter, co-founder of CarlundCarla. “We are still on a growth path, continually offering our product in new cities to a larger number of users."

The company relies on technology partners such as Invers for the delivery and provision of high-quality telematics solutions. It all started with a VW Bulli model T4: CarlundCarla founder Bastian Thiere acquired such a van in 2011 from an inheritance and soon came up with the idea of renting out the fascinating vehicle to share the ongoing costs. A student car-sharing group emerged. The sharing and lending worked so well that Thiere and his colleagues founded the transporter rental company CarlundCarla in 2013. Their aim: a simple digital booking process, contactless handover via smartphone, and a readily accessible customer service.

Personal key handover - far too cumbersome!

Even with the “original Charly,” it was clear that personal key handovers were too cumbersome. The constant question was: Where is Charly and who has his key? Thus, the Charly sharing group developed the "key idea" for contactless vehicle handover: a control unit with a GPS module, which allows the central locking of the Bulli to be opened. This first fleet telematics system was an in-house development by the Dresden team. The young start-up employed an extensive software development department and had to decide whether to focus on hardware or software development. The team opted for software, which they have been continuously developing ever since. The solutions for resource management, customer management, fleet management, and the damage management system are in-house developments. Numerous self-written tools help employees from all departments in their daily tasks.