Total cost of ownership over five years

What a five-year view is for

A five-year model is not an attempt to predict the future. It is a way of comparing options that look different on day one and land in much the same place by year three: a cheap used machine against a new one, ownership against hire, one make against another. The number at the bottom matters less than the shape above it. What you are looking for is which lines dominate, which are guesses, and which of them change if you choose differently.

Five years is a sensible window because it normally contains at least one battery event and several services, while staying inside a period you can plan for. Stop at three and the model flatters ownership by ending before the expensive part. Run to ten and almost every cell becomes an invention. Whatever window you pick, it has to be the same window for every option, with the same lines filled in for each, or you are comparing two different questions. The lines below are the ones we would expect to see on a model put in front of us. Some will be nil for you. None of them should be missing.

• Purchase or finance, including deposit, fees and anything payable at the end of a term.
• The battery set, and the year in which you expect to pay for it.
• Charging: the electricity itself, plus any supply or socket work the site needs first.
• Servicing, parts and tyres, split between routine work and reactive repair.
• Insurance and storage, which continue whether the machine moves or not.
• Downtime and cover, including hiring in during your busiest period.
• What the machine is worth at the end, expressed as a range rather than a number.

The purchase line, and what finance does to it

Outright purchase puts the whole cost in year one and nothing after it. Finance spreads the cost, and the spreading is the point rather than a saving: the total paid across a term is normally higher than the cash price, in exchange for keeping the money in the business meanwhile. Whichever route you take, the line has to carry everything attached to it, so include delivery, any pre-delivery inspection charged separately, documentation and option fees, and anything the agreement asks for at the end.

Lease and contract hire behave differently again, because you are paying for use and handing the machine back. There is no end value for you to realise, and the condition standard at handback becomes a cost line of its own. Our guide to hire purchase, lease and contract hire sets out how each route ends and who carries which risk. For the model, take your numbers from the quotation in front of you rather than from the category it belongs to.

The battery set and the year you pay for it

On an electric machine the battery set is the largest single event in the model, and its timing matters as much as its cost. A pack does not fail on a date. It fades, and the day it stops holding enough charge for your longest working day is the day it has to be replaced, whatever the calendar says. That day arrives sooner on a machine charged carelessly, left flat over a winter or worked hard every day, and later on one plugged in nightly and stored dry.

So build the line as a range: the earliest year you could reasonably need a set, and the latest, with the cost taken from a live quotation for the pack your machine actually uses. Lead-acid and lithium sit at different points on both axes, and they ask different things of you in the meantime, since lead-acid needs watering and checking while lithium does not. Ask the maker or the pack supplier what their warranty covers and on what conditions.

Servicing, parts and tyres

Split this line in two. Routine servicing is schedulable and quotable: an annual inspection by someone competent, brake adjustment, connections and terminals, and whatever the maker's schedule specifies for your model. Ask two or three engineers who cover your area what that visit involves and how they charge for travel, because call-out and mileage are often the part that varies most between them. Reactive work is the other half: a controller, a solenoid, a charger, or wiring that a rodent found over a winter.

Nobody can quote you a reactive line, but pretending it is nil guarantees the model is wrong. Set it as a proportion of the routine figure, write down that you have done so, and revisit it once you have a year of real invoices behind you. Parts availability moves the same line, because a make with a deep independent supply here is cheaper to keep running than one where every item comes through a single source. Tyres and consumables sit alongside, predictable enough to plan and easy to underestimate, since they wear with hours and with the surfaces you run on, and kerbs, gravel and hard standing get through them faster than mown turf.

• Routine servicing, quoted by the engineer who would actually attend, with travel included.
• A reactive allowance, set deliberately rather than left at nil.
• Tyres priced for the surfaces you drive on, not for fairway use.
• The wear items your model is known for, which the maker's schedule will name.

Charging, insurance and the standing lines

Charging is usually the smallest line in the model and the one owners most often over-estimate. The pack is small by vehicle standards, and your own tariff turns charging hours into a cost you can work out for yourself rather than take on trust. What can be significant is the work in front of it: a socket where the machine actually parks, a circuit that will carry several chargers overnight, or a board that needs attention before a fleet can be charged at all. Have an electrician quote that before it becomes a surprise.

Insurance and storage run whether the buggy moves or not, which is what makes them awkward in a seasonal operation. A machine used heavily for part of the year still occupies dry space in February and still sits on a policy. Your broker sets the first line, and your own site or a rented unit sets the second. If dry storage has to be built or rented, count it honestly, because damp across five years costs more than the space would have.

Downtime, cover and staff time

A buggy that is off the road costs money even when nothing is spent on it. If it earns, the cost is the income it did not take. If it moves staff, kit or guests, the cost is the work that happened more slowly, or the machine you hired in to cover it. Neither appears on an invoice, which is why they fall out of most models, and why those models then favour ownership without anybody noticing that they have.

Staff time belongs here too. Somebody plugs the machines in and unplugs them, checks tyres, meets the engineer, and loads a buggy onto a trailer when it goes away for work. On one machine that is a rounding error worth ignoring. Across a fleet it is a job, and if you would otherwise be paying an operator for those hours it is a real line. Put an estimate in and let it be argued about rather than leaving the argument out.

What the machine is worth at the end

The last line is the one people treat as free money. A five-year-old buggy has a value, but it is a range rather than a number, and it depends mostly on the condition of the machine and the age of the battery set at the moment you sell. A tidy example with a recent set and a service record sits near the top of its range. The same machine with a tired set and no paperwork sits near the bottom, because the buyer is pricing in the set they will have to buy.

If you intend to keep the buggy beyond five years, the value at the end is not cash. It is the reason years six and seven look cheap, and it comes attached to the battery event you deferred rather than avoided. Model both: a five-year cycle ending in a sale, and a longer hold with a second set fitted. That comparison usually settles your replacement policy more cleanly than either total does on its own.

Building the model with your own numbers

Build it as a table with a row for each line and a column for each year, then fill in only what you can source. Purchase and finance come from quotations. Servicing comes from the engineer who would attend. Insurance comes from your broker. Electricity comes from your own bill. The battery cost comes from a supplier quotation for your pack rather than from a forum. The value at the end comes from the used market as it stands now, as a range, and the tax treatment of any of it comes from your accountant.

Then test the guesses rather than admiring the total. Move the battery year forward by one and watch what happens. Halve the utilisation and see whether ownership still beats hire. Add a controller failure in year three. A model that survives that treatment is worth putting in front of a board. A model that only works on optimistic assumptions has told you something useful as well, which is that the decision is closer than it looked and probably needs a smaller first step.

• One row per cost line and one column per year, with no cell left blank by implication.
• A source noted against every figure: quotation, invoice, tariff or engineer.
• Guesses marked as guesses, so a reader can see what the total is standing on.
• At least two scenarios, one with the battery set replaced early and one with it late.

Common questions

What should I include in the cost of owning a golf buggy over five years?

Nine lines, and the purchase is only the first. Finance costs, the battery set, charging and any electrical work the site needs, routine servicing, a reactive repair allowance, tyres and consumables, insurance, storage, downtime cover and staff time all belong in the table, with the value of the machine at the end shown as a credit. Leave any of them out and the model will quietly favour whichever option you already preferred.

Is owning a buggy cheaper than hiring over five years?

It turns on utilisation, and on how honestly you cost the lines that hire absorbs on your behalf. A machine wanted most weeks of the year usually justifies ownership. One wanted for a short season or a handful of events rarely does, because insurance, storage and battery care carry on through every month it stands still. Build both columns with your own quotations rather than deciding on instinct.

How long will a battery set last?

No honest supplier will give you a figure that holds for your machine. Life is decided by cycles, depth of discharge, charging habits, storage and chemistry rather than by age alone. Ask the maker or the pack supplier what their warranty covers and on what conditions, then model an early year and a late year instead of a single date. Treat any set without paperwork as unknown.

Does finance make a buggy more expensive to own?

In cash terms the total paid across a term is normally higher than the cash price, and that is the cost of not paying up front. Whether it is the right answer depends on what else that money would do in your business and on how each route is treated in your accounts. Compare the actual quotations, read to the end, and take the tax and accounting side from your accountant.

Why does this guide not give a cost per year?

Because any number we printed would be wrong for your site. Costs move with the machine, its age, the chemistry of the pack, the hours you run, the surfaces you drive on, your electricity tariff, your storage and your insurer. We quote for the work in front of us instead. Where a figure is needed here, take it from the supplier, the engineer or the broker who would actually invoice you.

What do owners most often leave out of the model?

Four things. The electrical work needed before several machines can be charged overnight. Dry storage, where it has to be built or rented. The staff time that goes into charging, checking and meeting engineers. And the cost of a buggy being off the road during your busiest week. None of them arrive as an invoice, which is exactly why they go missing from the table.