Heavy Duty Aftermarket Dialogue (HDAD) kicked off Monday with some optimism for the industry, with a word of caution.
"The environment creates an opportunity for the aftermarket to serve as the constant amidst all the other variability," says Drew Backeberg, senior vice president of the aftermarket at Daimler Truck North America (DTNA). He delivered the OEM keynote at HDAD, presented by MEMA and MacKay & Company, ahead of Heavy Duty Aftermarket Week (HDAW) in Grapevine, Texas. "Our customers have to be able to count on our aftermarket ecosystem."
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Those customers, in the face of a generational downturn, are stretching trade cycles, parking trucks and deferring maintenance and repairs.
"But they can't defy gravity for long," Backeberg warns. Soon, DTNA expects parts and service demand to rise, even as customers are pinching every penny. That means the OEM is focusing more on value-aligned products typically more popular among owners of older trucks.
For new trucks, the market is down roughly 20% so far this year, owing to the economy. Contributing the malaise are tariffs and regulatory and political uncertainty that's roiled markets over the past year.
For its part, Backeberg says DTNA is committed to onshoring and nearshoring and he encouraged suppliers in the room to do so as well. He says DTNA is doing everything it can to mitigate tariff-related costs, because he and the company expect them to stay.
"None of us have a crystal ball that's good enough to know exactly what's going to happen," he says. But he pointed out tariffs leveraged in President Donald J. Trump's first term stuck around when President Joe Biden was in office. "It's very difficult for Treasury to walk away from that revenue."
There are opportunities for the aftermarket to capitalize despite rising costs. This includes, Backeberg says, among second and third owners of trucks, such as in providing warranties for those often cost-conscious customers.
"We're wanting to give our customers predictable costs," he says. These customers often turn to third-party warranties and low-cost service opportunities, and Backeberg says the opportunity exists to bring them back into the OEM fold.
"This strengthens long-term loyalty to our brands and creates parts and service opportunities for our dealers and suppliers," he adds.
Those dealers and suppliers form the backbone of DTNA's uptime commitment. Between the OEM and its dealers, it maintains more than $1.2 billion in parts inventory with AI-supported planning systems to maximize efficiency across 12 distributions centers and 11,000 service bays, as well as a robust e-commerce platform.
"Everything we build beyond the truck is really designed for one purpose," he says. "To keep our customers' vehicles on the road, generating revenue and powering businesses."
Another way to keep those trucks moving and control costs, Backeberg says — and another opportunity for aftermarket growth — is the remanufactured parts market. It's also primarily onshore manufacturing, so it makes sense for its market.
"Just from an environmental perspective, a circularity perspective, having a reman operation makes sense," he says, adding DTNA will continue investing in that segment of its business.
OEMs across the industry, not just DTNA, are also looking to leverage the data generated by trucks and trailers to maximize efficiency and uptime. Backeberg says its not a mature process quite yet, but there are a lot of opportunities contained in the equipment's data.
"There's no shortage in data that we're streaming real-time off these trucks," he says. "What do you capture and waht do you use it for?"
Backeberg ended by saying he's an optimist by nature. That said, he's positive with the outlook for 2026. He sees some glimmers of hope even if the fundamentals of the economy doesn't change much. Tightening capacity, he says, will put DTNA's customers in a more healthy position.
"Is it going to be brisk," he asks, "No. But better than '25."
