FEBRUARY 2025 DRIVING DATA
Key Observations From February's Reports
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“Amid healthy demand, strong build, and already high inventories, the industry’s capacity to sell finished products to end users could well be the limiting factor for production in 2025.”
-Kenny Vieth, President and Senior Analyst
N.A. Commercial Vehicle OUTLOOK
1. Economy - As these early policies take shape, their economic implications are becoming clearer. While it remains premature to predict long-term outcomes, certain trends are already emerging. What we do know is that consumer demand remains strong, with some households accelerating purchases, such as new vehicles, to preempt tariff-related price hikes and risks to the elimination of EV tax credits. The labor market is steady, and manufacturing shows incipient signs of recovery.
2. Medium Duty - At a preliminary 11,500 net orders for MD trucks (+/- 5.0%), January will be the weakest order intake month since July 2022.
3. Heavy Duty - Continued healthy activity for heavy vocational trucks since September’s order explosion suggests some level of prebuying has begun on top of strong end market demand as work truck buyers look to get ahead of the EPA’s 2027 Clean Truck regulation and 2028’s ZEV-targeting GHG-3 regulation. While we include GHG-3, we expect rulemaking will ultimately find its way to the dustbin or otherwise be heavily rewritten.
4. Trailer - Net order intake in December was just above 24.3k units, up 17% from November, but about 3% below the level accepted in December 2023. This brings full-year 2024 orders to 163.5k units, competing against a better 2023 order environment (236k) and fuller backlogs.
5. Used Truck - Same dealer Class 8 retail truck sales rose to their highest monthly tally for 2024 in December. The 16% m/m increase was stronger than the expected 8% seasonal gain indicated by history.
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N.A. Commercial Vehicle OUTLOOK?
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N.A. Commercial Vehicle OUTLOOK
Freight Forecast: U.S. Rate & Volume OUTLOOK
1. The shipments component of the Cass Freight Index® continued to tumble in January, down 5.3% m/m.
2. After a 23% y/y increase in December 2024, DAT load postings returned to flat y/y in January.
3. US dry van TL spot rates, net fuel, rose 2₵ m/m to $1.76 per mile in January, up 6₵ in SA terms.
4. The Driver Availability Index increased 3.5 points to 56.3 in December, from 52.8 in November.
5. The Supply-Demand Balance grew at a slower rate in December, at 51.3 (SA), from 52.0 in November, as the slower growth in freight volumes outweighed the slight contraction in capacity.
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Freight Forecast: U.S. Rate & Volume OUTLOOK?
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Freight Forecast: U.S. Rate & Volume OUTLOOK
State of the Industry: N.A. Classes 5-8 Vehicles
Final North American Class 8 net orders totaled 25.8k units in January, on still-healthy tractor orders and strong vocational demand.
“Tractor orders totaled 18.4k units, down 11% y/y. It remains to be seen whether the decrease in orders this month will continue or was just a reversion after November and December highs. One month does not make a trend,” according to Carter Vieth, Research Analyst at ACT Research.
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SOI: Classes 5-8?
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SOI: Classes 5-8
State of the Industry: U.S. Used Truck Classes 3-8
The Class 8 average retail sale price was essentially flat m/m in January, at $57,371, or 0.1% higher m/m.
“On a y/y basis, prices were 2.9% lower,” said Steve Tam, Vice President at ACT Research. “Prices are expected to start transitioning to y/y growth in early 2025.”
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SOI: Used Truck?
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SOI: Used Truck
State of the Industry: U.S. Trailers
January net trailer orders, just below 21.3k units, were down 13% from December, but 51% above the level accepted in January 2024.
“As noted the past few months, net orders are signaling a move toward ‘better,’ although they haven’t reached ‘good’ yet,” said Jennifer McNealy, Director–CV Market Research & Publications at ACT Research. “That said, we caution that the industry remains in the annual period of seasonally stronger order months, so weaker intake months are expected as we move into the late spring and summer months.”
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SOI: U.S. Trailers?
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SOI: U.S. Trailers
