For Fleet Managers and Procurement Managers, total cost of ownership (TCO) has always mattered. But the transition to electric trucks and vans is forcing a step change: TCO modelling is no longer a finance exercise done at purchase time — it is becoming a core fleet capability.
That was the consistent message from an AFMA webinar held in 2025, Total Cost of Ownership: a roadmap for fleet transition, hosted by the Australasian Fleet Management Association and sponsored by JET Charge.
The session focused on commercial vehicles and vans and brought together perspectives from fleet advisers, charging specialists, government and OEMs. What emerged was a clear shift in thinking: electrification changes what fleets need to know, model and manage.
From purchase price to system thinking
Opening the discussion, AFMA Executive Director Mace Hartley made it clear the session was not about vehicle pricing alone, but about understanding the full cost picture “around commercial vehicles and vans”.
That distinction matters. Electric vehicles don’t simply replace diesel costs — they redistribute them.
Movement Founder and Director Mark Gjerek explained why his firm undertook detailed TCO analysis of electric trucks.
“We saw a real gap and information gap in the market, where you couldn’t go to a single place to find information about what trucks were available, how much they cost, both from an upfront price and total cost of ownership as well,” he said.
The challenge for fleets is that electric vehicles invert many of the assumptions they have relied on for decades.
“Typically, EVs have lower variable costs… but they have higher fixed cost, like the capital cost of buying the truck,” Gjerek said. “The key to making an EV work against a diesel is to minimise the higher fixed costs and maximise the lower variable cost.”
In practice, that means TCO outcomes are far more sensitive to utilisation, charging strategy and energy pricing than many fleets are used to.
Why utilisation now drives the business case
Under a diesel model, many fleets could afford to be imprecise. Fuel costs were relatively predictable, infrastructure already existed, and vehicles could be redeployed across tasks with minimal planning.
Electric fleets demand a different discipline.
“When you’re buying an EV, the truck is generally energy limited,” Gjerek said. “Specifying a truck that’s going to do all of the diesel applications in your depot is going to be really expensive.”
This is where TCO modelling becomes operational, not theoretical. Kilometres travelled, dwell time, payload, route predictability and charging access all directly affect whether an electric vehicle sits in a “viable” or “marginal” zone.
Fleets that can accurately model their real-world duty cycles — rather than relying on averages — gain a material advantage.
Charging turns electricity into a fleet cost, not an overhead
One of the strongest messages from the webinar was that charging infrastructure is no longer an IT or facilities issue. It is now a fleet cost driver.
JET Charge Director of Major Projects Alex Bowler was blunt about the implications.
“If you’re not putting the same rigour of cost control onto electricity as you do on petrol or diesel, you’re throwing money away into the gutter,” he said.
Bowler broke charging into four main options: home, depot, destination and public hubs. For most fleets, depot charging remains the foundation, but even then the cost outcomes vary widely.
“If it’s your site, either leased or owned, you control energy into that site, and you control your own infrastructure,” he said.
However, the variability is significant. Charging equipment, civil works, energy tariffs, maintenance and uptime all feed into TCO. Small differences in design decisions can produce large differences in lifetime cost.
This is why static spreadsheets are no longer enough. Fleets need models that can test scenarios, not just record costs.
Grants help — but they don’t remove the need for modelling
Government incentives featured prominently in the discussion, but not as a shortcut.
Alex Grant, Director of Zero Emission Vehicle Strategy Implementation at the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, said grants are designed to reduce risk, not replace commercial discipline.
“ARENA provides grant funding to projects to take on risk and to prove out the technical and commercial challenges,” Grant said.
Since 2017, ARENA has approved more than $270 million for transport-related projects, but Grant cautioned that long-term sustainability still depends on sound operating models.
“Grant funding is there to help induce these bold efforts,” he said, “but the projects still need to stand up over the long term.”
For fleets, this reinforces the importance of understanding what happens after incentives expire — and modelling accordingly.
More vehicles, more choice, more complexity
As more electric vans and trucks enter the Australian market, the modelling challenge intensifies.
Jameel Motors Australia Country General Manager Adam Lawson said fleets are now facing a much broader range of options than even two years ago.
“There’s plenty coming on and plenty more choice coming through,” he said.
While increased choice improves competition, it also raises the bar for evaluation. Battery size, warranty terms, charging rates and residual assumptions all interact with TCO outcomes.
Lawson noted that warranties are one way OEMs are helping manage uncertainty.
“We warrant the batteries up to eight years,” he said. “We do that on purpose so people have confidence in the second life as well.”
TCO as an organisational capability
The underlying message from the AFMA session was not that electric vehicles are universally cheaper or more expensive. It was that fleets that build strong TCO capability will make better decisions — regardless of powertrain.
As Bowler observed, delaying decisions indefinitely also carries a cost.
“If you wait, you’re going to benefit from better technology and lower costs,” he said. “But you also need to consider what the benefit is of transitioning some or part of your fleet sooner.”
In an environment of rapid change, TCO modelling is no longer a one-off analysis. It is becoming an ongoing capability that sits alongside safety, compliance and asset management.
As Gjerek summed it up during the webinar, “It’s not about yes or no. It’s about where you start, and how well you design it.”
