This was a busy week. We begin with truck orders, which were down in July but that doesn’t portend bad news. It’s the opposite! Order boards are filling up so eager buyers are waiting to jump on the 2027 calendar in September. We also touch on fleet sentiment from this month’s MEMA webinar. Three carriers shared with MEMA members that they intend to buy more trucks but need more drivers. They also shared they can’t keep paying for premium parts brands if pricing is exorbitant against quality aftermarket alternatives. Then we touch on International’s forthcoming cab design updates and the closing of its Ohio plant after sunsetting the CV Series, the supply chain and production disaster in the fire truck sector, dealer compensation trends, earnings reports and a FleetCross/Noregon integration.
Lucas: Hey, everyone. Lucas here for today’s TPS weekly news roundup. A lot of exciting stuff.
I’m going to start with truck orders. Truck orders for July came in earlier this week, about 22,000 units. I know what you’re thinking. Is that down? It is down. We’re down about 30% from June, but that’s not, it’s not bad news. The order boards are almost entirely full. Manufacturers really can’t take any more orders than what they’ve taken in July. Expectation from manufacturers, from FTR and ACT Research, are that when we get to September, when we start the new order season, order boards are going to explode. Freight demand is there. Carriers want to buy equipment. We’re up 120% year to date on truck orders in the Class 8 space. And there’s no reason to think that order demand won’t remain high as we get into September and the final quarter of the year.
On that topic, MEMA had its mid-year fleet check-in this week and three fleet executives on the call all three said the same thing. They’ve all added equipment this year. They want to continue to add equipment in 2027 or possibly in the final months of 2026, saying the same thing. They’d like to boost their utilization rates higher. They’d like to have more equipment. They are turning freight away because demand is so high.
One big challenge — they just don’t have enough qualified drivers. We’re back where we were pre-COVID where we have a driver shortage, or we have a lack of qualified drivers. All the carriers saying, ‘Look, we can get people to put them in trucks, but we don’t really trust them and they don’t go a good job, and then we have to get rid of them and cycle through.’ So, we are continuing to look for good drivers. If you are a dealer or a service shop and you know good drivers that are looking for hauls, help your customers out because customers need drivers right now.
The carriers also noting on the parts side, they are increasingly accepting of value line parts, aftermarket private label parts, anything that provides real value that can be a good quality part for a reasonable price. The carriers saying they can’t continue to pay for premium brands, even brands they know and trust if they are two, three times more expensive than a reliable private label. So, if you’re a dealer or a parts distributor out there, if you have an aftermarket part that you trust, that you know is quality, that you know is reliable, you might want to show that to your customer. You might want to let them know it’s out there because they’re not going to continue to come to you if they can go across town or across the street and get a comparable part for a lower price.
We’ll also have some more insights on that topic in the coming weeks. I’m working on a bigger feature [on the topic]. But just some interesting candor from the carriers there saying, ‘look, we appreciate our premium brands, but we can’t continue to make those purchases if the prices are exorbitant.’
A couple other notes this week. International is closing its plant in Ohio where it produces the CV Series. They are sunsetting the CV Series at the end of September. In October, they expect to sell the plant to Roshel Defence Solutions. This will put about 1,300 manufacturing employees out of work. Hopefully Roshel hires a lot of those International workers back. But [International] did announce this week they’re going to be closing that plant and did warn those associates that the building will be closing.
International also announcing they are redoing their cabs for their Class 8 market.
And they’ve had pretty much the same cab design for a decade or more, so they say it’s time for a refresh — a little bit more modern, a little bit more aerodynamic. So, we’ll be learning more about that in the coming weeks.
Then some other stuff. Apparently it’s impossible to buy a new fire truck or get fire truck parts right now. The National Fire Protection Association, which represents fire departments nationwide, saying it’s really a crisis. They can’t get new trucks at all. They can barely get parts. And the trucks that are going out to fight fires are not up to snuff, and it puts people’s lives and property and puts the country at risk. Fire truck manufacturers, there’s only two or three that represent most of the market due to some roll-ups over the last several years. They say their problem is supply chain. They are still not back to where they need to be pre-COVID. They can’t get the parts they need to complete repairs or to complete assemblies. Fire trucks, as you know, are incredibly advanced and incredibly intricate, and they’re saying they're just not getting what they need to get the trucks off the line. I don’t know what the answer is there, but it’s clear there's a problem. So if you’re interested in that or you sell fire truck parts, you should check that story out.
Then a couple quick things at the end. Earnings, we got some more earnings reports this week. Those stories are on the website. FleetCross is now available in all Noregon products. Those two companies are owned by the same parent, so they’re kind of combining that resource.
And then ATD released its most recent compensation report. So, if you’re a dealer and you want to know how your pay and benefits compare to your peers, you should check that story out. You should download that survey from ATD.
As always, please like and subscribe to these videos so you get them each month. Please make sure you’re subscribed to our newsletter so you never miss any of this during the week. Check out the website. All these stories are there if you didn’t see them this week. Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next week. Thanks everyone. Bye.
