ACT Research says new equipment demand, pushed by higher freight rates, is still strong.
Contractions in the driver supply — helped by the Supreme Court's decision on broker liability, stricter ELD/HOS rule enforcement and new carrier registration rules — are supporting higher freight rates, the data firm says.
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"Underlining the robustness of the current demand environment has been the backlog boosting surge in tractor orders that began last December," says Ken Vieth, ACT president and senior analyst. "Year-ago August tractor order backlogs fell to a nearly 13-year low. In our latest industry data, June-ending order backlogs were more than double year-ago levels."
Tractor sales are still below replacement levels in the first half of the year, Vieth says, as OEMs and suppliers work to ramp up production.
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"Many of the capacity constraints will persist and worsen, but the easing in freight demand seasonality in Q3 should temporarily take some of the pressure off capacity," Vieth says. "Higher rates and driver pay will begin to offset these constraints, but the supply-side challenges for the industry are extraordinary as we move further into this new upcycle."
ACT released the data in the latest issue of the North American Commercial Vehicle Outlook.
