The Class 8 market continued to experience weak orders and falling backlogs. Build rates exceeded the pace of incoming orders again in July. Classes 5-7 continued to be a model of consistency with orders in line with build and steady, if low, backlogs. This updated status of the North America commercial vehicle market was included in the State of the Industry report, recently released by ACT Research Co. (ACT). The report covers Class 5 through 8 vehicles for the North American market.

“Concerning the heavy-duty market, we view the unusual pairing of weak orders and low cancellations as a reflection of today’s bifurcated truck market,” said Kenny Vieth, president and senior analyst at ACT, “To that end, we believe confidence is at a key component of the order pullback across a large swath of carriers.”

ACT also said that July is seasonally the weakest order month for the trailer industry and the 14,500 new orders booked for the month confirmed that pattern. Orders were down 5.9% m/m.

“The net order picture was a bit stronger than new orders, but still down 2% month over month,” said Frank Maly, Director-CV Transportation with ACT Research. “Additionally the decline in orders outpaced the slide in production, resulting in the lowest level of backlogs since last December. July shipments were up 14.8% year over year, although they were down 12.6% from last month,” he added. Maly reiterated that confidence and availability of funds are at the center of the pullback by credit buyers, impacting ongoing trailer order demand.