Ownership cost increases for the pickup category have outpaced cars and SUVs for the previous 12 months.
Chart: Vincentric
Welcome to the latest installment of Fleet Data Depot, which provides snapshots of information, trends, and analysis relevant to the fleet market.
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 first quarter of 2024.
This analysis is based on vehicles driven 20,000 miles per year for three years. As usual, Vincentric calculates its standard eight cost elements: depreciation, financing, fees and taxes, fuel, insurance, maintenance, opportunity cost, and repairs.
Cost Per Mile Increases
The fleet costs per mile for all five vehicle categories increased substantially in the first quarter of 2024:
- Luxury Car: increased by ~2.4%
- Luxury SUVs: increased by ~6%
- Passenger Cars: increased by ~1.5%
- Pickups: increased by ~7.8%
- SUVs: increased by ~3.7%
The first-quarter data is an acceleration of the price gains experienced in the fourth quarter of 2023 when prices increased in three of five categories. That fourth quarter reversed the third quarter trend, in which costs for most vehicle categories decreased slightly.
Ownership costs for luxury passenger cars and SUVs have been on an uneven yet steady rise over the past few quarters, with luxury SUVs seeing the most dramatic spike of any category. Depreciation is the biggest factor.
Chart: Vincentric
Depreciation Drives Increases
These increases in cost per mile were primarily caused by increases in depreciation costs, which ranged from 4% to 20%. This is primarily due to the high number of MY24 vehicles Vincentric received from its data provider since last quarter.
In January through March, Vincentric added about 400 new trims for the pickup category and 100 new trims for the luxury SUV category. This led to the luxury SUV and pickup categories having the biggest increases in depreciation costs, which contributed to their significant overall cost-per-mile increase.
Depreciation for the luxury SUV category increased 9.8% (from $0.51 per mile in January to $0.57 in April) and depreciation for the pickups category increased 20.9% (from $0.29 per mile in January to $0.35 in April).
