Paxster Builds the Vehicles - We Build the Technology

Arild, Head of Innovation at Paxster, knew how to build an electric vehicle. What he didn’t know yet was whether the software behind it could carry the autonomous plan.

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Arild's Story

Arild has spent close to 30 years turning ideas into things you can actually touch: CAD/CAM, prototyping, robotics, lithium-ion battery systems, electric drivetrains. At Paxster, he heads innovation, which in practice means steering the company toward greener, smarter mobility. He describes himself as being “on a mission for a change to green mobility.” Ask him what makes a good day at work and the answer involves a hard technical problem.

He Built it; for the Last Mile
Paxster makes the vehicles and the software that keep last-mile delivery moving: fleet operations, vehicle intelligence, and the shift to sustainable transport. It started with a brief from Norway Post. Build a vehicle that can handle deliveries at serious volume, day after day, without slowing down.
Thousands of couriers and drivers now use that vehicle to do their jobs. Arild’s team didn’t stop at the design either. Hardware, drivetrains, electrification, every layer built by people who knew exactly what the last mile asks of a vehicle.

The Question Paxster’s Hardware Couldn’t Answer
Paxster’s next chapter wasn’t really about the vehicle. It was about autonomy, and autonomy runs on software: live visibility, fleet management, geofencing that respects local rules, and a backend that can scale well past Norway.
That was never going to be work for a vehicle engineering team, no matter how good. Rubico understood the ask on the first call, and understood the ambition sitting behind it. That’s what turned a vendor conversation into a partnership.

The Challenge

Arild’s team had done everything right for the stage they were at. A successful vehicle line. A last-mile product thousands of couriers relied on daily. Then autonomy raised three questions no vehicle engineering team is set up to answer on its own:

“How do we scale this platform as we add vehicles and users across new European markets?”
“How do we keep vehicle data accurate once it’s moving through several third-party systems?”
“How do we apply different safety and compliance rules in every city we operate in, without rebuilding the product every time a rule changes?”

Paxster had the vehicles. What it didn’t have was a software foundation that could scale, modernize, and adapt at the pace the vision needed. That’s where Rubico came in.

Documented Position

One connected fleet ecosystem: live tracking, fleet operations, geofencing, vehicle intelligence, and compliance rules you can configure rather than rebuild.
Prioritized Roadmap

Move off GPS Gate onto a backend Paxster owns, so new modules plug in cleanly, and the platform can be customized as it grows.
Ongoing Engineering Partner

What started as an app build is now a long-term partnership. Rubico still ships against the roadmap, modernizing the platform as Paxster expands.

How Arild and Rubico Worked Together

Rubico built on Flutter, one codebase across Paxster’s apps, and treated the work as a single system rather than a feature list. Three problems were tangled together:

Hidden Technical Blockers
Vehicle data came in through GPS Gate: a closed platform, a fixed API format, and a cost attached to every call. Rubico added a middleware layer that stores each vehicle reading once and serves it in whatever shape the app needs. Fewer API calls, and Arild can now customize and evolve the system on his own terms.

User & Access Management
Two platforms, and strict rules about who can do what in each. We walked through every user scenario and permission requirement, then built role-based access: four roles for the last-mile app, five for the utility app, all managed from one place.

Compliance
Geofencing as a configurable control layer: polygon-based zones, policies per zone, and a city-level regulation model. When a jurisdiction changes a rule, someone updates a configuration. Nobody rebuilds the product.
On the same foundation, Rubico shipped live autonomous vehicle tracking, last-mile service navigation, vehicle intelligence (remote diagnostics, charging alerts, service reminders), and payments that work both locally and internationally through Vipps and Stripe.

Compounding challenges solved as one system

Shared codebase across both applications.

Database migration and API restructuring underway.

What Arild Has to Say?

“What began as a simple app project has evolved into an ongoing partnership. Today, Paxster and Rubico continue to work closely to develop better digital tools for Paxster's customers. We see Rubico as a long-term partner and look forward to continuing this successful collaboration as we expand the Paxster Connect platform.”

— Arlid, Paxster