Reduce fleet costs: opt for lightweight chassis and boxes
If you run a fleet, optimised fleet management is essential. If you’re planning to reduce fleet and thus company costs, the obvious solution would be to minimise your fleet.
But to make sure that your fleet can still transport the same volume, it’s a good idea to opt for the lightweight chassis concept from AL-KO Vehicle Technology. So as to evaluate the resulting capital goods from an economic point of view, below you can find an exemplary calculation for the total cost of ownership:
Fleet management: optimise and go from 11 to 8 vehicles to save on costs
In order to calculate total cost of ownership, we have used a company that delivers goods twice a day with a3 freight volume of approx. 165 m as a basis. To start off with, this is done with vans that travel to a total of 50 locations twice a day. The freight volume is 15 m3 per commercial vehicle. The fleet therefore consists of 11 vans. The TCO calculation then compares a van to an OEM cab with lightweight chassis and box (box truck) [1].
Permitted gross weight and useful weight
The permitted gross weight of both vehicles is 3,500kg. A van’s unladen weight amounts to 2,393kg, compared to 2,239kg for a box van. If you then consider the remaining useful weight for both vehicles, this results in 1,107kg for a van and 1,261kg for a box truck, with the box truck having an 154kg advantage.
Acquisition and operating costs p.a.
- The list price of a van is €35,000, with operating costs [2] of €46,868 p.a..
- For a box truck, the list price is €45,000 and the operating costs amount to €46,494 p.a..
Useful weight advantage
The useful volume of a van is 15 m3 per vehicle. 11 vehicles are needed to meet the 165 m freight volume3 (165 m3/ 15 m3 = 11). A box truck has 5.3 m3 more useful volume due to its design, i.e. 20.3 m3 (4.2 * 2.2 * 2.2). This means that only 8 vehicles are needed.
Fleet operation p.a.
The above-mentioned operating costs for a van amount to 46,868 * 11 = €515,551 p.a. for the entire fleet. For the box truck, this figure is 46,494 * 8 = €371,952 p.a.
In short: optimised fleet management, ROI and cost savings
If you subtract the costs p.a. of €515,551 to operate a van fleet from the €371,952 operating costs p.a. of an optimised fleet with box trucks, the savings amount to €143,599 p.a. and €717,995 over a period of five years.
