This week’s roundup begins with First Brands — a company at its end after a Federal judge orders it into Chapter 7 liquidation. We also cover President Trump’s tariff announcement for Canada and what it could mean if implemented. Then we cover the news from a busy MEMA Commercial Vehicle Outlook Conference, including market predictions, and new supplier and OEM strategies, touch on registration opening for HDAW 2027 and tease more stories about our Distributor of the Year and Successful Dealer Award finalists.
Lucas: Hey, everybody. Lucas here for today’s TPS weekly news roundup. A lot of great stuff on TPS this week.
I want to run it through quickly and help you out. First of all, First Brands. This story is kind of reaching its end. A Federal court judge announcing this week that the company’s Chapter 11 plan is not feasible so it will go into Chapter 7 liquidation. Whatever’s left will be sold off. Creditors will be repaid as much as they can and First Brands will be no more. You can check that story out if you didn’t see it, but it sounds like that story is about to end.
Also President Trump announcing this week 50% tariffs on cars, trucks, auto parts and steel from Canada. Now we are looking into if, when it says trucks and parts, if that means commercial vehicle specific or automotive. We’re trying to check that out. But that is a new tariff that would go into effect on Jan. 1. The United States and Canada were in trade negotiations all last week. They broke down late Friday. President Trump responded with these tariffs. Canada responded with their own reciprocal tariffs. A lot of interesting categories are covered. You can go online and find that out. We don’t know if this will actually happen. Jan. 1, is a long way away, but something to be prepared for because if this does hit the commercial vehicle market, about 20% of vehicles are produced in Canada and then come down to the United States. So, it would really impact pricing in 2027 and beyond if it does impact our market and it does become implemented.
Other stuff this week, MEMA’s Commercial Vehicle Outlook Conference was held Wednesday. Some interesting stuff there. Jonathan Starks from FTR kind of kicked off the event, talked about 2026, 2027 and beyond for vehicle sales and freight. He said freight is up a little bit this year, which is driving up orders and demand a little bit in the commercial vehicle space. FTR is updating its projections the year end a little bit more from where they were earlier in the year. They’re also amending their 2027 and 2028 projections. No huge jumps forward, just some, some small incremental improvements Jonathan said. But the market is doing a little bit better and the data reflects that.
Some other stuff from MEMA’s event. There was a supplier panel I got the chance to listen in on. Suppliers talking about how they are sort of managing business right now. They said uncertainty is the name of the game [but] you can’t really worry about that anymore.
You have to focus on what you know you’re certain about, what your customers definitely want. That’s where manufacturers are trying to invest into technologies and solutions and resources that customers need, demand, and will pay for.
And then lastly some interesting stuff there from Volvo on cost optimization on how Volvo is working with its supplier partners to try to pull costs out of its supply chain. The company saying it’s more than just squeezing suppliers for better deals. It’s looking at the entirety of their production schedule from R&D, clear through to the truck running off the line and finding out where can they be more efficient, where can they be more effective, and working with their vendor partners to [move] costs more in line with where it needs to be. So that, also some other good stuff from the Outlook Conference. Check that out on the website.
Couple other quick hits. Registration opened for HDAW this week. HDAW will be Jan. 18-21, at the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine, Texas. Please register for that as quickly as you can. Make sure to book your hotel reservations as well because the Gaylord will book up before HDAW. So if you don’t want to be on the secondary or tertiary hotels, be sure to book now.
We ran our second Distributor of the Year finalist questionnaire this week. That was with Freedom Truck & Trailer. If you didn’t see that, please check that out. The third one will be next week. We will also run our first Successful Dealer Award finalist profile on Monday. That’ll be with California Truck Centers, so please check that out.
A lot of other good stuff on the website this week. CVSA Roadcheck data. ATA President Chris Baer resigned suddenly last Friday. So there’s a story there about that. Detroit announcing, or Daimler announcing, Detroit’s [Series 6 EPA 2027] engines will be available to order on Sept. 1, so check that story out.
Be sure to like and subscribe to these videos so you get them every week. Be sure to make sure you’re subscribed to our newsletter so you’re getting all these stories. Have a great day. Have a great weekend. We’ll see you next week. Thanks everyone. Bye.
