April Class 8 Orders Continue Year-Over-Year Declines

Volume Also Down Compared With March Levels
Production at Mack Trucks plant
Mack trucks in production at the Lehigh Valley Operations Plant in Macungie, Pa. Overall Class 8 orders in April fell 27% year-over-year, according to ACT Research data. (Mack Trucks)

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North American Class 8 orders in April continued the trend of year-over-year declines by dropping to 11,600 units, reported.

ACT preliminary data showed orders fell 27% compared with 2022, when they hit 15,800 units. The only month so far to see a year-over-year increase was February. Orders also were down 39% from the previous month at 19,200 units.

鈥淕iven robust Class 8 orders into year-end, ensuing backlog support and normal seasonal order patterns, orders were expected to moderate into Q2,鈥 said , vice president and senior analyst at ACT. 鈥淐oupling those items with increasingly cautious readings from the ACT Class 8 Dashboard, April orders were weaker than expected on a stand-alone basis.鈥



Crawford, however, noted that the seasonally adjusted year-to-date figure is squarely in line with expectations at 17,500 units. ACT expects seasonally adjusted orders to be in a range of 15,000 to 20,000 units per month until midway through the third quarter.

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Eric Crawford of ACT Research

听ACT Research Vice President and Senior Analyst Eric Crawford. (ACT Research)

鈥淭he recent turmoil in the banking sector likely tightened credit conditions for some industry participants and may have played a factor in exacerbating April鈥檚 weakness,鈥 Crawford said. 鈥淭hus, while we expect orders to remain at subdued levels into mid-[third quarter], we are not inclined to think April鈥檚 order activity represents the likely run rate going forward.鈥

Truck orders closed out the latter part of last year strong , including an all-time high in September. But that started to change this year with new truck orders falling short of the year-ago figures for the most part.

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Jonathan Randall

搁补苍诲补濒濒听

鈥淧reliminary HD sales numbers in April show a 25.4% improvement YTD over the same period in 2022,鈥 said , president of . 鈥淎t Mack, we saw our overall market share improve and our YTD sales continues to be higher than the market鈥檚 growth rate. We remain confident in the level of demand we are seeing from our customers as market forces still support a need for new trucks.鈥

FTR, an economic and freight forecasting firm, noted in its preliminary data that Class 8 truck orders fell 20% year-over-year to 12,050 units from 15,066. It also recorded a 37% month-over-month decrease with 19,000 units being ordered for March.

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Eric Starks of FTR

听厂迟补谤办蝉

鈥淲hen 2024 order boards open later this year, we anticipate some modest additional strength in order activity,鈥 said. 鈥淭here still are indications that fleets are requesting equipment, and there has been no notable uptick in cancellations. Once we see the full data midmonth, we will have a better grasp on any changes in cancellation behavior.鈥

Starks doesn鈥檛 anticipate much negative impact on production levels over the next few quarters despite the weakness. He noted the incoming order rate for March was 145,000 annualized, which is on par with the weak order levels during the summer of 2022. He also expects backlogs will have come down during April.

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鈥淲e鈥檙e on allocation and we were on allocation last year as well,鈥 President said. 鈥淪o those numbers in our experience have little or nothing to do with demand. They have everything to do with our ability as an industry to manufacture vehicles. So, a 27% year-over-year decrease under normal circumstances would be very alarming. But in this environment, I don鈥檛 take a lot of stock in it.鈥

Treadway added that while demand for trucks may be down, it still exceeds supply. He noted orders his company is taking are filled through the third quarter. Those slots are also close to being filled in the fourth quarter.

鈥淲e, as an industry, didn鈥檛 follow the typical pattern because of the allocation system the last couple of years,鈥 Treadway said. 鈥淣ormally we would have overproduced and oversold. We were not able to do that, so the peaks were not as high and the valleys will not be as low.鈥

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Treadway noted the issues with production continue to be parts and components availability. The difference is what parts are unavailable keep changing. He noted the manufacturer would solve one issue only for another to arise.

鈥淚t continues to be those exact same issues, albeit they鈥檙e different,鈥 Treadway said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the whack-a-mole game. You resolve one problem here, and then another one pops up over on the other side. And so, we continue to have supply constraints and component constraints.鈥

Treadway also noted that demand for trucks depends heavily on what market segments they operate in. He pointed to his energy industry and commercial construction customers as doing well. But residential construction has not been.

鈥淲e are seeing some hesitation in some of the market segments,鈥 Treadway said. 鈥淣ot all of them are experiencing the same declines. Some of them are still doing quite well.鈥