Beyond uncertainty, few words have earned more publicity in the trucking industry this year than capacity. For more than a year, market analysts, vendors, dealers and carriers alike have spoken of the truckload sector’s need to right size. To remove a segment of units from the operating population, ending the continued reduction of freight rates to create conditions in which a turnaround could begin.
Overcapacity isn’t a new problem — it’s a standard piece of the carrier business cycle — but Rusty Rush, president, chairman and CEO of Rush Enterprises, says for some reason this cycle it’s taking longer than normal to be alleviated.
Whether it’s due to upheaval of trade norms, the constant whipsaw of regulatory policy or simply selling too many trucks the past few years, Rush says he doesn’t exactly know.
But speaking Tuesday during a press conference at the 20th anniversary Rush Enterprises’ Tech Skills Rodeo in Nashville, Rush says until the carrier market normalizes, new equipment demand isn’t going to return.
“We’re ending our third year of a freight recession,” he says. “Yet capacity never came out [this year] like we typically see it.”
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Rush is hopeful next year will be return to more normal operating conditions, but admits these days there’s no sure thing in forecasting. Rush leadership, like most across the industry, expected a freight turnaround in 2025 when setting business plans last year. Rush and COO Jason Wilder says it was clear “when all the tariff stuff picked up” in March that those plans were scrapped, but even then Rush says the company didn’t expect the overcapacity issue to remain a problem this long.
“I feel sorry for our carrier friends,” he says.
Rush also says Rush Enterprises is fortunate that it’s so diversified, with parts, service, body shop, lease and rental and other divisions, as well as strong footholds in vocational and medium-duty segments, to support its business amid the on-highway order recession.
Yet even with that wide swath, he still admits it’s been a “tumultuous year.” Rush says he expects the business to finish “maybe a little off” from 2024 with this quarter likely to be the year’s weakest.
Some of that is seasonal, he says — “November, December, January and February are not my favorite months” — while the rest can be attributed to the sales skid and limited parts and service growth opportunities. Dealers were able to sustain profits early in the year delivering the orders they booked last year. Now that they’re solely delivering 2025 builds, that buffer is gone.
“Truck deliveries will trough out in Q4,” Rush predicts.
As for 2026, he says he’s trying to remain upbeat.
The tariffs on new medium- and heavy-duty trucks and components will add to the sticker price for model year 2026 equipment but at least now the OEMs can predict those rates and distribute that information through their sales channels. Additionally, Rush says the decision to keep but amend the EPA 2027 NOx rule gives his company, his fellow dealers and their OEM partners clarity around another long proposed but unfinalized price hike.
Independently, Rush says none of that increases demand, but it does at least give customers some stability to make capital investment decisions.
“It’s hard to run a business when things are changing month to month, week to week,” he says.
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And the capacity problem will eventually be solved too. Rush is hopeful the fleet population level sets by Q2 so the second half of the year begins a cycle turnaround. Rush says a small pre-buy could occur then, with potential to expand if broader economic conditions allow.
He doesn’t anticipate last week’s Federal Reserve rate cut to make much difference, especially with inflation still above the Fed’s preferred 2% level and unemployment creeping upward.
But however it happens, Rush echoes the chorus of the trucking industry eager to see any signs of a market turnaround.
“It’s got to get better,” he says. “It can’t be like this forever.”
