Driving Down Whole-Life Costs

Take complete control of your costs

In a world of narrowing margins, inflation on raw materials, and rises in vehicle, fuel and energy costs, your fleet’s Whole-Life Costs (WLCs) have never been more crucial to understand to drive down fleet costs.

Running and owning fleet vehicles can cost companies millions of pounds each year, but by evaluating WLCs, fleets can get more of a detailed picture of overall costs whilst also potentially reducing CO2 emissions, enabling further progress to net-zero mobility.

Sharing our expertise

Our experienced fleet consultants are adept at carrying out comprehensive Whole-Life Cost consultations, which will help you shape policy and control fleet costs.

As a multi-brand provider, our dedicated VWFS | Fleet consultants can leverage a wide range of key vehicle data alongside your current fleet costs to accurately model the WLC of a single vehicle or an entire fleet.

We’ll help you with the full picture of your fleet’s future

Our consultants will help you make decisions that dive much deeper into costs by taking into account factors such as:

Initial capital cost
Initial capital cost

The overall initial outlay of the vehicle, including any discounts.

Vehicle depreciation
Vehicle depreciation

We can advise on vehicles that will decrease in value at a slower rate, meaning more residual value at the end of its contract.

Servicing, maintenance and repair costs
Servicing, maintenance and repair costs

Having a robust SMR programme in place for your fleet vehicles will ensure that their overall health is maintained and safeguarded against future costly repairs.

Tax considerations
Tax considerations

There are a variety of taxes to consider on fleet vehicles: the tax charged on the price or leasing cost of the vehicle, road tax, CO2 emissions, VAT recovery and corporation tax.

Vehicle insurance costs
Vehicle insurance costs

All fleet vehicles need to be adequately insured – depending on the type of vehicles in your fleet this can have a significant impact on WLCs.

Fuel consumption
Fuel consumption

Adding a vehicle to your fleet that offers a slightly improved miles per gallon (mpg) rate can result in a significant savings.

Quickly monitor your WLC impact with our Fleet Management Portal

Our intuitive Fleet Management Portal has been carefully designed in collaboration with our customers to ensure you have the information to hand to help shape policy, budget accurately and overcome your most important daily challenges.

Discover how this unique time-saving, self-service portal empowers you to manage, control and analyse Whole-Life Costs – without the need for countless hours of research and administration.

Look beyond Internal Combustion (ICE) engines

32% of fleets still need convincing that the WLC of Electric Vehicles (EVs) can compete with that of equivalent ICE vehicles*.

In fact, the lower operating costs seen on EVs make them an attractive long-term proposition in terms of WLC.

They often reach cost parity with ICE equivalents – or even become cheaper outright – despite a higher initial purchase price or monthly rental.

Our EV consultants will support you every step of the way, identifying the right vehicles to be replaced, advising you on projected cost savings and helping bridge any knowledge gaps with driver education and training.

*360 Media Group’s Sustainability Index

Smarter long-term decisions, made simple

To illustrate the detail of a WLC calculation, the example below gives further insight:


A nationwide spare parts distributor was looking to release cost savings across their fleet. Our specialist account managers identified that they could reduce the size of the vehicles without compromising load space.

By downsizing vans (while still keeping the same specification), they were able to optimise their fleet.

Shrinking the vehicles meant they could also shrink the leasing costs.

Smaller van has a lower leasing cost

Here to help

Our whole-life costs consultation will give you an overview of your fleet costs, so you can decide how best to fund your fleet. Our specialist software pulls all costs together in one place, meaning you can benchmark your current fleet against the alternatives.

And because you can compare funding methods and quickly demonstrate the cost benefits, including a cash option, for any car, it helps you make the right funding choice.