In just a few short years, Recomotor has gone from listing used car parts online to becoming a tech-driven auto recycler. Jan Amat, CEO and Co-Founder, shares how the company’s rapid evolution, from a small B2C marketplace to a vertically integrated vehicle processing operation, was driven by real industry pain points, bold pivots, and a deep commitment to digitizing the reverse supply chain. He unpacks the challenges, breakthroughs, and future roadmap for transforming how Europe reuses cars.
Solving Trust, Speed, and Supply in a Fragmented Industry
We launched in June 2021 as a small B2C marketplace: we bought good-condition parts from a handful of dismantlers and listed them online on wallapop.com (a Spanish B2C Marketplace for secondhand items). Very quickly, we realised that the real pain point was on the professional side; workshops and fleets that needed reliable, warranted parts delivered fast. So we pivoted to B2B within the first quarter of 2022, where we connected B2B customers to third-party auto recyclers. Two significant challenges showed up immediately:
- Quality & trust. The average failure rate for used parts in Spain hovered around 25%. We built our own scoring algorithm and in-house testing flow, cutting the incident rate below 5 % which has been maintained until today.
- Fragmented supply. We started with approximately 200 partner dismantlers, but the lack of digital stock data meant quotes could take hours. We solved it with a chatbot-based sourcing engine that returns a price in under 15 minutes and triggers 24–48 hour shipping automatically.
At the same time, the post-COVID parts shortage and the EU’s growing circular-economy agenda turned those headaches into an opportunity: our customers suddenly needed reliable reuse. That’s when we began eyeing vertical integration.
From Interface to Infrastructure: Building Speed, Scale, and Tech into Auto Recycling
Recomotor started very lean. In 2021, we were essentially just an interface between dismantlers and final clients. But very soon, we saw that this model wasn’t enough — most dismantlers lacked digital infrastructure, and professional buyers needed more than just listings; they needed certainty, speed, and guarantees.
That realization sparked a chain of evolutions. We initially thought access to inventory was the problem, but it turned out logistics was equally critical. We built our own centralised warehouse and fulfilment hub in Balaguer (Lleida), which opened in 2023. This allowed us to aggregate parts, retest them, and manage delivery SLAs ourselves, something most dismantlers weren’t equipped to do.
We also replaced slow manual quote-generation (common in the sector) with a chatbot-powered sourcing engine. It uses part numbers, VINs, and image recognition to find and price parts across hundreds of suppliers in under 15 minutes. That changed the game for workshops with tight repair deadlines.
The big leap came in 2023–2024: moving from being a marketplace to being a vehicle processor ourselves. By acquiring treatment centres (starting with Vinaros, Castellon), we closed the loop, handling disassembly, certification, testing, and reuse in-house. It made our margin model more scalable and allowed us to set our own QA standards.
We also saw that some high-rotation parts (mirrors, bumpers, ECUs, injectors) had very predictable demand patterns. In 2024, we began dismantling proactively for stock, not just on order. This shift, common in e-commerce but rare in auto recycling, is making us faster and more reliable than traditional players.
Internally, our culture has also shifted. We’ve built a full-stack tech team with data engineers, backend devs, and automotive specialists, focused on building tools like our supplier reliability dashboard and the upcoming AI-based grading system for dismantled parts. We’re not just selling old parts; we’re digitizing the entire reverse supply chain.
A New Model for Auto Recycling: Digitized, Scalable, and Built for Speed
People & footprint. We currently have 100 employees and expect to reach 200 by 2026. Besides Balaguer, we now operate three owned dismantling centres and retain a virtual stock from 200 partners.
Scale. In 2024, we recovered and sold just over 10,000 parts; this year, we’re on track for 20,000 and €9M turnover.
Tech stack. AI-driven part-ID, a supplier-scoring dashboard, and API hooks for insurers give us <15 min quote times and <5 % incident rate, versus multi-hour/manual processes in a typical Spanish Dismantler.
Business model. We combine a marketplace for long-tail parts and a vertically-integrated plants for high-rotation SKUs. Traditional recyclers rely almost exclusively on walk-in trade or classifieds and rarely invest in digital traceability.
Looking Ahead: Expansion, Smarter Tech, and a Bigger Role in Europe’s Circular Economy
Our roadmap is to reach five owned treatment centres, handle 20,000 ELVs a year, and exceed 200,000 certified parts sold annually. That should take us to €30 M revenue by 2028. On the tech front, we’re rolling out vision-AI grading, digital “passports” for every part, and predictive stock tools that sync with large fleet-maintenance ERPs.
Strategically, we’re already shipping to all EU (60% of 2025 revenue will be exports), and we expect partnerships with insurers and leasing companies to accelerate that, for example, with the first insurer of Portugal (Fidelidade). Of course, all of this is framed by the forthcoming EU ELV Regulation, which rewards high-reuse operators with clear compliance data.
An Industry in Transition: Fragmented Locally, Accelerating Digitally Across Europe
Spain still has a very atomised landscape, with approximately 1,200 authorised CATs, most of which are family-run and paper-driven. Digitisation is improving, but less than 20% of dismantlers publish real-time inventory, so workshops struggle with SLA-driven repairs. Europe is moving faster: the Commission’s July 2023 draft ELV Regulation introduces recycled-content targets and digital traceability for every vehicle (environment.ec.europa.eu). That will tighten the supply of compliant parts but also push OEMs to source reuse at scale, exactly where platforms like ours can plug in.
Collaboration is Key: Unlocking Circular Value Through Data, Design, and Shared Standards
Collaboration is absolutely critical. Reuse will only go mainstream if three things happen:
- Data sharing: OEM part numbers, repair manuals and battery-passport data must flow to recyclers; the ELV proposal will likely mandate that.
- Certification & warranties: We already outperform new-part failure rates, but co-branding with OEMs could remove the last barrier for fleets and insurers.
- Design for disassembly: Early-stage input from dismantlers can cut scrappage time by 30% and improve material recovery.
The opportunity is a closed-loop supply chain that slashes CO₂ and raw-material demand; the hurdle is aligning incentives and investing in joint IT infrastructure. With advisers like OK Mobility or Clicars, we’re already piloting “take-back & reuse” programmes with mobility operators.
I’m confident the next five years will see recyclers and OEMs working side-by-side rather than across the table.
Visit www.recomotor.com
