Welcome to the latest installment of Fleet Data Depot, which provides snapshots of information, trends, and analysis relevant to the fleet market.

In this edition, the total cost of ownership experts at  Vincentric  deliver another quarterly update on per-mile ownership costs for fleets over the previous 12 months. These fleet cost-per-mile calculations are for the third quarter of 2023, July 1 to Sept. 30.  

This analysis is based on vehicles driven 20,000 miles per year for a three-year window. As usual, Vincentric calculates its standard eight cost elements: depreciation, financing, fees and taxes, fuel, insurance, maintenance, opportunity cost, and repairs. 

Cost Per Mile Decreases

Compared to last quarter’s analysis, fleet cost per mile for most vehicle categories decreased slightly in the third quarter, while the Pickups and SUVs categories remained the same: 

• Luxury Car: decreased by ~2.4% 

• Luxury SUVs: decreased by ~1.7% 

• Passenger Cars: decreased by ~1.5% 

• Pickups: 0% change 

• SUVs: 0% change 

These decreases in cost per mile over the last quarter were primarily caused by substantial decreases in opportunity costs, Vincentric said. The opportunity costs for each vehicle category decreased by approximately 75% this quarter. 

Vincentric reports that its data source for opportunity costs adjusted its methodology, which resulted in a significant decrease in savings interest rate since last quarter, which is likely the main cause for the decrease in overall opportunity costs. 

Cost per mile can also be affected by the addition of new vehicle models introduced into Vincentric’s database from its data provider each month. Because these charts show the average cost per mile for overall categories such as Luxury SUVs, adding to the total number of vehicles in a category can also cause fluctuations in cost per mile on a month-to-month basis. 

Since last quarter, Vincentric has begun adding a large number of MY24 vehicles, which contributes to cost factor fluctuations.