29.12.2025 / Total cost of ownership calculation: how does DV-TCO calculator save fleets money

Any carrier, taxi company, carsharing, etc. having a fleet regularly asks the question: "Which vehicle will be more profitable?". Any manufacturer is interested in: "What is the competitive advantage of my vehicle?" DV-TCO online calculator can answer these and other questions. Alexander Kozlov, Development Director at the marketing agency NAPI, spoke about the creation of DV-TCO, its unique functions and plans for the tool development.

— How did the idea to create DV-TCO come about?

— For the first time, we were asked to make a comparative analysis of operating cost of vehicles about 12 years ago. We called the resulting product "Argumentator". At that time, data was collected manually, and it took 1.5-2 months to compare a competitive range of 5-7 vehicles. It was necessary to collect a lot of data: prices for vehicles from dealers, spare parts for maintenance and routine repair for each model and their items, data on standard hours, fuel prices, hull insurance and MTPL rates, etc. Moreover, it was necessary to calculate the vehicle depreciation, the cost of its purchase on credit, lease, and with own funds. When all the initial data was collected, it was necessary to build a mathematical model and calculate the final part of the total cost of ownership (TCO).

It was also important to take into account the fact that each client had their own needs and their own approach to calculate the total cost of ownership: for some it was important to compare the cost of maintenance, for others - technical specifications of vehicles, for third - a financial package was necessary. All this required a large number of human resources, time and financial expenses.

As demand grew, we decided to automate the system – to develop a program providing the user with the possibility to independently configure the algorithm for analysis as needed. In 2020, we launched the DV-TCO integrated product. The program grew every year, and was replenished with many options. We are constantly developing it. When I speak at conferences, I often get questions: "What's new in the program?".

— Why do companies prefer to turn to professionals rather than compare vehicle models on their own?

— Some companies try to perform analysis by themselves in the hope of saving money. They usually assign two employees to collect data on the total cost of vehicle ownership. In fact, they are doing what we did at the very beginning – the "Argumentator". As a result, it takes them 2-3 months to analyze 5 models. This is when it comes to cars, but with trucks everything is more complicated. Analysis of 5 vehicle models of any type using DV-TCO will take several minutes and will cost 10 times less than two months of work.

— There are free calculators on the Internet, what is the difference between them and DV-TCO?

— Firstly, free calculators are available only for cars, they are no calculators for trucks and commercial vehicles, as this is a more complex product. Secondly, they use a very simple algorithm and a set of options is limited. For example, the cost of hull insurance and fuel is often not considered at the regional level, the winter period is not taken into account, and tire prices are not ranked by model, brand, and size. Moreover, it is unclear how often updates are performed there. DV-TCO is updated every month. These updates include prices for vehicles, fuel, tires, spare parts, etc. Other parameters, such as taxes, duties, Platon, or MTPL, are updated when the relevant official changes are released.

Moreover, many calculators do not include the residual value, following the misconception that the total cost of ownership is only fuel and service costs. It's not professional. We are sometimes told that our total cost of ownership is quite high in our calculations. However, if you take the entire life cycle of the vehicle and take into account all the necessary parameters, including depreciation, you can make sure that these are real figures.

If we look even deeper, then our program can now calculate not just the total cost of ownership, but the cost of operation. And this feature is unique. DV-TCO considers over-regulated replacement of spare parts based on their wear and tear, allowing you to see the entire life cycle of the purchased vehicle, the frequency of replacement of spare parts and service visits, which is especially important for fleets.

 — What other important functions has the DV-TCO calculator?

— DV-TCO has the option of calculating vehicle leasing. There are many leasing calculators, but they are divorced from the vehicle itself, i. e. they are not included in the operation process itself. DV-TCO also has the ability to calculate payments, preferences and effects that exist when leasing a specific vehicle.  Users can find out the rates of leasing companies even before they conclude the contract, see monthly payments in the form of graphs, compare the results of calculations and make the best decision on the choice of the company. The tax accounting option has been introduced specifically for accounting records.

Also, in our program, you can calculate the cost of operating the vehicle used as taxi. Taxi is an extremely complex topic. There are different operating schemes: as a legal entity and as an individual. They have different tax systems, different insurance, and different fuel consumption. It is very important for taxi companies to consider the correct fuel cost – the regional one, because the average cost of fuel in a country is like the average temperature in a hospital. It is necessary to provide for the wear of spare parts; we include them in the mileage replacement. In addition, there are payments that taxi companies or individuals pay for a permit to operate a taxi, for example, compulsory civil liability insurance of the carrier and insurance box of spare parts that are not included in routine replacement or wear. We take all this into account in the program.

— Share real cases of how clients successfully solved their tasks using DV-TCO.

— We have many such examples. For example, we were once approached by the manufacturer who participated in a tender from the fleet for the purchase of cars. Using DV-TCO, our client was able to calculate in advance how much it would cost for the fleet to purchase his cars and those of competitors. The client adjusted prices for cars and service, and also built a virtual fleet in the program, which allowed him to clearly show all the advantages of choosing his cars. As a result, the tender was won by this manufacturer.

Or another example, already for trucks. The dealership was planning to upgrade its long-distance transportation vehicles, and it needed tractor units with various superstructures. Using the DV-TCO calculator, our client not only calculated the total cost of ownership of trucks of various brands, but also estimated the cost of traveling by these vehicles along specified routes due to the function of building an itinerary. So, the dealership selected the most profitable and suitable vehicle models for its tasks.

— Tell us about the plans for the calculator development?

— We plan to add an option to choose non-genuine spare parts. The tool itself has been developed and tested, the question is which manufacturers' parts should be included. There may be up to 100 analogues of very different quality for one genuine spare part, and each company has its own successful or sad experience of operating certain brands of analog spare parts.

There are other interesting solutions to expand the possibilities of using the tool, but this is still a trade secret.

* All images are for illustrative purposes only