National Center for Sustainable Transportation

This report outlines the technical development and application of the Total Cost of Ownership Spreadsheet Tool (TCOST), a Microsoft Excel-based calculator that simplifies and integrates the main functions, data, and outputs of pre-existing models (MOVES-Matrix and the GREET Model) and other external sources of economic data. The tool accommodates twenty-one user-input variables to produce comparative total cost of ownership figures for diesel and battery-electric trucks within any use case, broken down by cost type (capital, operation, and maintenance), both as a gross number and on a per-mile basis. The tool also provides a series of visualizations comparing cost breakdowns, breakeven points, and expected tailpipe and fuel-cycle emissions for both technologies. A hypothetical regional container drayage use-case example was developed using quantitative and qualitative data, to which TCOST was applied to demonstrate the application of the tool and its value to fleet managers and policymakers in its ability to model the cost effects of minor parameter adjustments or the multiplicative effects of simultaneous parameter adjustments quickly and easily. TCOST may be used to help inform the decision-making process for fleet vehicle acquisition and planning, helping decision makers to visualize a variety of future scenarios and map those scenarios onto their fleet operations to assess risks and make informed choices about the future technological makeup of their fleets. TCOST will help policymakers quickly model the cost impacts of potential policy levers from a business perspective. 

View the 2021 NCST Project Webpage and the 2023 NCST Project Webpage