Driver costs, equipment costs, insurance costs, travel and food costs may have longer-term legs of reducing the purchasing power of your budget, says HDT's Contributing Economic Analyst Jeff Kauffman.
Owing to its broader base of applications and vocational niches, medium-duty demand held up relatively well on an absolute basis in April when compared to their bigger [Class 8] brethren.
Class 8 truck orders hit a high point for 2019 in October; however, in what is traditionally a great month for truck orders, that performance marked the weakest level since 2016, according to preliminary reports.
Early reports on Class 8 truck orders for the month of August show a modest increase compared to July, but as manufacturers open up slots for 2020, it seems that fleets are in no hurry to fill them.
With strong demand for comemrcial trucks, especially by a strengthening construction sector, Mack Trucks now forecasts 325,000 Class 8 units this year.
Truck age is an important factor in total cost of ownership/life cycle cost calculations. The longer you keep a truck, the more it costs in maintenance and repairs.
After a banner year in which Class 8 truck orders averaged at least 42,600 units per month, early reports from both ACT Research and FTR show a drop off in activity in November.
Truck production numbers show a trend toward smaller displacement engines and more straight trucks in the truck market, according to ACT Research and Rhein Associates.
Orders for Class 8 trucks moderated from the record-setting levels of this summer, but were still 21% better than a year ago, according to ACT Research, while used-truck sales improved over September. However, cancellations rose.
October Class 8 orders were above 40,000 units for the eighth month in a row, but two different companies reporting the data put rather different spins on their analysis of the numbers.
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