Driveway Online Car Buying Platform
Launching a national car buying platform
Driveway is Lithia Motors' move into online car buying and selling. There was no existing platform to build from. Detroit Labs partnered with them to create it from scratch: shaping the brand, designing the experience, and leading a team of 60 to build a national platform that launched on time and exceeded its first-year targets by 25%.
Lithia Motors set out to change how people buy and sell cars: bringing the trust and expertise of their nationwide dealership network into a fully digital format. They had deep domain knowledge. They had zero technology infrastructure. They needed a partner who could build the whole thing. Detroit Labs built Driveway from the ground up: brand, design, and engineering for a platform that had to work at national scale from day one.
The Challenge
Lithia wasn't iterating on an existing product. This was a ground-up build: a new brand, a new platform, and an entirely new way of doing business. Everything had to work together: inventory browsing, financing, trade-ins, logistics, and support. All of it had to feel intuitive to the customer. And it had to perform at national scale from day one.
Lithia needed a partner who could move fast, think clearly about the product, and deliver end to end. There was no prototype to point to. No prior version to learn from. Just a vision and a short runway.
The Vision
Driveway wasn't just a product. It was a new business model. Lithia wanted buying or selling a car online to feel as straightforward and confident as any other digital transaction.
For Detroit Labs, delivering on that meant owning the full scope: defining the Driveway brand, leading UX design, building the platform's core systems, and developing supporting tools like an iPad app for in-person vehicle inspections. Not in sequence. All at once, with a team built to match the scale of the ambition.
The Process
To deliver at this scale, we built the largest team in Detroit Labs history: around 60 people across engineering, design, delivery, and product leadership. We grew quickly to meet the timeline and embedded directly with Lithia's teams to stay aligned and keep everyone focused on what customers actually needed.
Key streams of work included:
Brand Development: We worked closely with stakeholders to shape Driveway's visual identity and tone, grounding the brand in clarity, confidence, and trust.
Core Platform Development: Multiple Labs teams owned foundational components: vehicle search, user onboarding, and payment flows.
iPad App for In-Store Use: In parallel with the consumer-facing experience, we designed and built a companion app to support in-person vehicle inspections.
Continuous Adaptation: We adjusted our team structure as the product matured, bringing in new expertise, balancing near-term delivery with long-term sustainability, and maintaining clear communication across all parties.
The Solution
Driveway launched as a complete national car buying platform. Customers could browse inventory, get trade-in offers, secure financing, and schedule delivery from one place. Guided financing workflows and real-time inventory search set it apart from competitors who had struggled to deliver a complete online car buying experience. Behind the scenes, Lithia had the infrastructure and tools to run and scale the business.
Business Impact
Launched a nationally scaled car buying platform from scratch
4,300 monthly shop-and-sell transactions at launch, with an annual run-rate exceeding 51,000: 25% above the original 2022 target
More than 2 million unique monthly visitors shortly after launch; 2.8 million average in Q4 2023
Driveway Finance originated over $428 million in loans in Q4 2023 alone
Vehicles shipped an average of 800 miles, proving coast-to-coast reach
Expanded Lithia's business into new market segments and revenue streams
Gave Lithia's own team a codebase and foundation to continue building on independently
