Assets: Vehicles, Trailers, and Equipment

Manage assets including vehicles, trailers, powered equipment, unpowered equipment, and more through the unified /assets endpoints.

Beta: Asset API endpoints are in beta. Please reach out to your account team to enable them for your organization.

This guide explains how to manage various asset types—including vehicles, trailers, and equipment—using Samsara’s /assets endpoints. You will learn how to list, create, retrieve, and update asset data.

Asset Types

• Vehicle – Examples include trucks, buses, etc.
• Trailer – Examples include dry vans, reefers, flatbeds, etc.
• Powered Equipment – Examples include dozers, cranes, etc.
• Unpowered Equipment – Examples include containers, dumpsters, ladders, etc.
• Uncategorized – Any other assets that do not fit the above categories

Working with the /assets Endpoints

The /assets endpoints provide a unified way to manage different types of assets. Whether you’re working with vehicles, trailers, or equipment, you can list, create, update, and manage these assets through a consistent API interface.

Once an asset is created, it remains in Samsara even if the underlying hardware is removed or moved. For vehicles, this is particularly important for maintaining historical data for compliance. Vehicle records cannot be deleted; if a vehicle is retired, mark it using fields such as name or notes (for example, “Retired on 2025-01-01”).

---

Vehicles

Creating Vehicles

There are two ways to create vehicles in Samsara:

• Automatic Creation: Vehicles are automatically created when a Samsara Vehicle Gateway is activated.
• API Creation: You can also create a vehicle manually via the API. To do this, send a POST request to the /assets endpoint with a JSON payload that includes "type": "vehicle" along with any other relevant vehicle data.

Example request

curl -X POST 'https://api.samsara.com/assets' \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  --data '{
    "type": "vehicle",
    "name": "New Truck",
    "vin": "153YV5DN4EN811585",
    "make": "FORD",
    "model": "F-150",
    "year": 2016,
    "regulationMode": "regulated"
  }'

Example response

{
  "name": "New Truck",
  "type": "vehicle",
  "vin": "153YV5DN4EN811585",
  "make": "FORD",
  "model": "F-150",
  "year": 2016,
  "id": "281474994663039",
  "createdAtTime": "2025-02-13T19:19:19Z",
  "updatedAtTime": "2025-02-13T19:19:19Z"
}

Automatic vs. API-Created Vehicles

Regardless of how a vehicle is created, once it exists in Samsara:

• The vehicle record will persist, ensuring historical data is preserved.
• You cannot delete the vehicle record. Instead, if a vehicle is retired, update the name or notes field accordingly.

Listing Vehicles

To list vehicles, use the List Assets endpoint. You can filter results to vehicles by using the type=vehicle query parameter.

Example Request

curl -X GET 'https://api.samsara.com/assets?type=vehicle' \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN"

Example Response

{
  "data": [
    {
      "name": "Truck",
      "type": "vehicle",
      "vin": "153YV5DN4EN811585",
      "make": "FORD",
      "model": "F-150",
      "year": 2016,
      "regulationMode": "regulated",
      "id": "281474994182986",
      "createdAtTime": "2025-01-17T20:57:42Z",
      "updatedAtTime": "2025-01-27T19:31:43Z"
    }
  ],
  "pagination": {
    "endCursor": "",
    "hasNextPage": false
  }
}

Pagination Note: Samsara returns up to 300 assets per page. Use the after query parameter with the endCursor value from the previous response to paginate through additional results. See Pagination for more details.

Retrieving a vehicle

To retrieve details for a specific vehicle, use the List Assets endpoint with the vehicle’s ID passed via the ids query parameter. You can also combine this with type=vehicle for clarity.

Example Request

curl -X GET 'https://api.samsara.com/assets?type=vehicle&ids=281474994182986' \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN"

Example Response

{
  "data": [
    {
      "name": "Truck",
      "type": "vehicle",
      "vin": "153YV5DN4EN811585",
      "make": "FORD",
      "model": "F-150",
      "year": 2016,
      "regulationMode": "regulated",
      "id": "281474994182986",
      "createdAtTime": "2025-01-17T20:57:42Z",
      "updatedAtTime": "2025-01-27T19:31:43Z"
    }
  ],
  "pagination": {
    "endCursor": "",
    "hasNextPage": false
  }
}

Updating a vehicle

To update vehicle properties (such as name, licensePlate, notes, or externalIds), use the Update an Asset endpoint (PATCH). You must include the asset’s id as a query parameter.

Example Request

curl -X PATCH 'https://api.samsara.com/assets?id=281474994182986' \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  --data '{
    "name": "TMS Truck #123",
    "licensePlate": "CA-123456",
    "notes": "Retired from fleet on 2025-01-01"
  }'

Example Response

{
  "name": "TMS Truck #123",
  "type": "vehicle",
  "vin": "153YV5DN4EN811585",
  "make": "FORD",
  "model": "F-150",
  "year": 2016,
  "regulationMode": "regulated",
  "id": "281474994182986",
  "createdAtTime": "2025-01-17T20:57:42Z",
  "updatedAtTime": "2025-01-27T21:45:00Z"
}

---

Other Asset Types

In addition to vehicles, you can create other asset types (such as trailers and equipment) using a POST request to /assets. See the Create an asset documentation for a list of the supported asset types. In this example, we’ll create a new trailer asset.

Example request

curl -X POST 'https://api.samsara.com/assets' \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  --data '{
    "type": "trailer",
    "name": "Flatbed #42",
    "make": "Big Tex",
    "model": "14OA-20"
  }'

Example Response

{
  "name": "Flatbed #42",
  "type": "trailer",
  "make": "Big Tex",
  "model": "14OA-20",
  "id": "281474994550668",
  "createdAtTime": "2025-02-07T21:45:13Z",
  "updatedAtTime": "2025-02-07T21:45:13Z"
}

Use the same PATCH endpoint (with id=<assetID>) to update properties for trailers or other equipment at any time.