Vehicle data infrastructure for AI agents
Deterministic VIN schemas. MCP, REST, and x402. Pay for the record — not the scrape.
Agents don't need another browser scrape of Carfax or KBB. They need deterministic vehicle schemas they can call every turn: VIN → specs, plate → VIN, history, value, recalls, lien/theft — same JSON, same meters, same key.
CarsXE is that layer. Claude / GPT / Gemini / Cursor are the intelligence. We are not the storefront and not the agent runtime.
Why agents switch off search / scrape
Search and scrape burn tokens and invent trim, title brands, and values. CarsXE returns the same JSON, on the same meters, with the same key.
| Before agents | With CarsXE |
|---|---|
| LLM “looks up” a VIN and invents trim | GET /specs → make, model, year, trim, engine |
| Token burn to summarize a history PDF | GET /history → title brands, salvage, odometer timeline |
| Agent guesses “what’s it worth” | GET /v2/marketvalue → retail / wholesale / trade-in / auction |
| Recall check via NHTSA HTML | GET /v1/recalls or Recalls Batch (up to 10k VINs) |
| Plate photo with no structure | Plate OCR → Plate Decoder → Specs |
Entity resolution: the VIN is the ID. Plate + region resolves to VIN. YMM when there is no VIN. One graph, not five scrapers.
Access (pick one)
Hosted MCP for editors and CLIs. REST for production backends. An onboarding skill, LLM-readable docs, agent discovery, and x402 for a single paid call with no account.
Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Claude/Gemini/Codex CLI
Production backends (EPA path)
Browser PKCE → CARSXE_API_KEY in under a minute
Fewer tokens, no HTML chrome
Bootstrap routes, MCP, OpenAPI
One-shot lookups only — not EPA
MCP tools today
- specs
- plate decode
- international VIN
- market value
- history
- images
- recalls
- lien-theft
- plate OCR
- VIN OCR
- YMM
- OBD
Listed on MCP.so, MCP Market, Glama, MCP Registry, MCP Servers.
Designed for agentic consumption
The same ideas structured data APIs market for company records — we already ship them for vehicles.
- 1Deterministic schemas — orchestration stays stable across turns.
- 2Compact, typed JSON — not a wall of scrape text.
- 3Named tools over freeform browse — MCP tool = endpoint.
- 4Pay for the record, not the tokens — overage on Specs / History / MV beats burning a frontier model to invent a title brand.
- 5Two payment paths — production key (quotas + overage) for embeds; x402 for a single paid call with no account.
Published overage examples
Starter / Pro, August 2026.
| API | Overage |
|---|---|
| Specs | ~$0.10–$0.15 |
| Market Value | $1.50 |
| History | $4.99 |
| Plate Decoder | ~$0.45–$0.50 |
| Lien & Theft | $1.00 |
Failed 400 validation is free.
Who builds with CarsXE
| Buyer | Job |
|---|---|
| Dealer / marketplace SaaS | Decode VIN → fill listing; History + MV before publish |
| Insurtech / FNOL | Plate/VIN → specs → value; compose with site-risk APIs if needed |
| Lenders / fintech | Lien & theft + history on origination |
| Agent builders | MCP tools inside Cursor / Claude / custom harness |
| Fleets | Recalls Batch nightly over inventory |
Enterprise: Ownership (PII, charge-on-match), custom quotas, Snowflake.
60-second start
Add the hosted MCP in one command, or call REST with the same key.
claude mcp add --transport http carsxe https://mcp.carsxe.com/mcp \
--header "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY"curl -G https://api.carsxe.com/specs \
-d key=YOUR_API_KEY \
-d vin=WBAFR7C57CC811956What we are not selling
- A shopping / merchant agent (fork Anthropic’s commerce-agents; call us for grounding)
- A computer-use / Open Computer wrap
- Scraped Carfax / auction / OEM portal data