Calculating cost per kilometre
Cost per kilometre normalises a vehicle's total cost for how far it has been driven, so you can compare a high-mileage workhorse fairly against a rarely-used pool car. This article explains how to derive it from the figures the platform records.
The two ingredients
Cost per kilometre combines a cost figure with a distance figure:
- Cost — a vehicle's Total-Cost-of-Ownership for the period, taken from the Fleet Cost Cockpit (or the Kosten tab of the Fahrzeugakte). This already includes fuel, maintenance, damage, insurance, leasing and receipts.
- Distance — the kilometres the vehicle covered in the same period, derived from its odometer. Each vehicle stores a current odometer reading (in kilometres); the distance for a period is the difference between the reading at the end and the start of that window.
Cost per kilometre is then simply the period TCO divided by the kilometres driven in that period.
Warning: Use the same period for both figures. If you take a full-year TCO but only a partial-year odometer change, the result will be meaningless. Whole, matching windows are essential.
RatePerKm is a different number
Each vehicle also has a configured rate per kilometre field (stored to four decimal places). This is the rate charged per kilometre driven — used for internal chargeback and mileage-based billing — and is set by hand on the vehicle. It is not the vehicle's actual cost per kilometre. Compare the two deliberately: if the configured rate you charge is well below the real cost per kilometre, mileage-based recovery is under-pricing that vehicle.
| Figure | Where it comes from | What it represents |
|---|---|---|
| Actual cost per km | Period TCO ÷ kilometres driven | What the vehicle really costs to run per km |
| Rate per km (RatePerKm) | Configured on the vehicle | The chargeback rate applied to mileage |
A worked approach
- Pick a period — for example a full contract year.
- Open the vehicle's TCO for that period in the cost tab or the Vehicle dimension of the cockpit.
- Read the odometer at the start and end of the period and take the difference to get kilometres driven.
- Divide the TCO by the kilometres to get cost per kilometre.
Tip: Export the Vehicle-dimension cost view to CSV and add a distance column from your odometer records. A spreadsheet then gives you a cost-per-kilometre ranking across the whole fleet in one pass.
Interpreting the result
- A high total but low cost per kilometre usually means a heavily-used but efficient vehicle — keep it.
- A modest total but high cost per kilometre points to an underused or costly-to-run vehicle — a candidate for pooling or replacement.
- Watch the mileage against the vehicle's allowed annual mileage: exceeding it can trigger leasing penalties that raise real cost per kilometre.
Permissions
The cost figures require the fleetcost:view permission, usually held by the FleetManager role. Odometer readings are maintained on the vehicle record.
Related
- Total cost of ownership per vehicle
- Comparing vehicles by cost
- Exporting cost data to CSV
- Interpreting the cost KPIs
