In today’s roundup we discuss ATA’s Technology & Maintenance Council (TMC) Annual Meeting and the news it produced. Trailer makers like Stoughton, Utility and Hyundai Translead had big news; ATA President Chris Spear discussed the impact of the Iran conflict on trucking and the newest parts and service expense study was released. We also check in on Daimler and its 2025 earnings, production increase in Michigan and forecast for the year ahead. Also new engine oils, our Successful Dealer and Trailblazer Awards and more.
Lucas: Hey everybody, Lucas here for the TPS weekly news roundup. I’m going to start today with TMC, which just concluded Thursday in Nashville—the ATA Technology & Maintenance Council (TMC) Annual Meeting.
Tons of news coming out of TMC. Trailer manufacturers, specifically, incredibly busy. We had announcements from Hyundai Translead, Utility Trailer, Stoughton trailers, several technology providers, lighting solutions from the trailer space, component solutions from the trailer space. A lot of news coming out from TMC.
Hyundai Translates saying they are bringing a new manufacturing plant to the Chicagoland area. Stoughton Trailer announcing they are the first trailer manufacturer to pass an IIHS rear impact guard safety test at 40 miles per hour. Utility announcing they are bringing a new reefer to the market, as well as some other news. A lot of news coming out from the trailer manufacturers at TMC. Also some news from Volvo, some news from Mack at TMC.
Cummins introduced its new 2027 X15 at TMC. Some good stuff there from a product perspective.
ATA Chairman Chris Spear [also] presented on the state of the industry right now, mentioned the impact the conflict in Iran could have, not just on oil prices and fuel prices, but also the impact it could have on global freight and global trade and then what that could do to the trucking industry. So, check that story out, that’s available.
Also an announcement from TMC and Decisiv. Those two entities track parts and service expenses and their most recent announcement at TMC’s meeting saying that parts and service costs were actually down in the final quarter of 2025. They had gone up 3.8% in Q3. They went down 1.3% in Q4. So, good news for fleets, probably not good news if you’re in the parts and service sector and you had to lower prices or your prices went down a little bit. But just an update that the market did trend down a little bit in Q4 from a parts and service perspective.
Some other news this week, Daimler was busy. Daimler announcing last week they are adding a third shift, bringing back laid off workers, adding to their workforce at their Detroit facility, which produces engines, axles and transmissions in the Detroit area. Detroit really excited about that, saying it’s a necessary upscale for an expectation of a production increase in 2026 and beyond. Daimler Truck AG [also] announced its 2025 earnings and its Q4 2025 earnings last week. We had that story this week. Daimler down 8% globally in sales in 2025. In North America, down 26%, which again speaks to what all the other OEMs have said that 2025 was really a tough year from a sales perspective. Daimler is optimistic for an uptick in sales, both globally and in North America in 2026. But if you want to learn more about their expectations for the year and what they see coming, additionally, some more data about what they experienced in 2025 and how they’re managing that, that story’s available on the website.
Couple other things. API, the American Petroleum Institute, announced its PC-12 proposed category has been approved and is moving forward for production in 2027. That’s CL4 and FB4 heavy-duty diesel engine oils. All those oils are moving forward and now the marketing can begin. So, exciting news from API about the future of commercial vehicle diesel engine oil.
And then lastly, I want to go back to our two dealer awards, our Successful Dealer Award and our Trailblazer Award. We opened the nomination period for those two programs on the first of March. We’re starting to receive nominations. If you’re a dealer and you want to nominate your business, please do so. If you’re an OEM, if you’re a supplier, you want a nominated dealer partner, please do so. If you are a fleet or someone who’s catching this and is not in the dealer channel, but you think a dealer is deserving, please nominate a dealer. Those nomination forms are available on our website through the end of May. We will be doing evaluations in June and July and announcing our finalists in July. So, we’d love to hear from the industry about the best truck and trailer dealers in the space.
On that, across the aisle there, our aftermarket award, our Distributor of the Year award — nominations for that will begin on April 1. So, if you’ve got some distributors you want to nominate, put those in the back of your mind for a couple weeks from now.
Not a lot of news on the First Brands front this week. There’s some court cases that are still ongoing. We will have more information on that continuing story once more news is available, but nothing particularly striking this week.
As always, check out the website, check out the newsletter. Everything is there. Be sure to like and subscribe to these videos. We hope that you’re getting a lot out of them. If you were at TMC, we hope you got home safely. Enjoy your weekend. We will see you next week. Thank you, everybody. Bye.
