May net U.S. trailer orders of 19,445 units were virtually unchanged compared to April, down just 0.8 percent month over month, but were 93 percent higher compared to May 2021, according to this month’s issue of ACT Research’s State of the Industry: U.S. Trailer Report.

“Order placement remained choppy in May, with dry vans, up 32 percent month over month, and bulk tank, 42 percent month over month, responsible for the total industry uptick,” said Jennifer McNealy, Director–CV Market Research & Publications at ACT Research. “OEMs continue to negotiate with fleets, and that effort is building a large group of staged/planned orders that are not yet officially posted to the backlog. Once OEMs gain sufficient confidence in their availability to open 2023 production slots, expect a surge of orders to be ‘officially’ accepted.”

McNealy added, “The industry has normally not been willing to push commitments past 12 months, nor open a new calendar year this early in the preceding year, but recent years, including the pandemic-battered 2020/21, have been anything but normal. We expect some OEMs to begin considering longer orderboards, with appropriate cost/price protections.”

She concluded with a discussion about the backlog, stating, “The orderboard slid sequentially again in May, the second month-over-month decline in backlog since last October. Dry vans, platforms, and lowbeds all shared responsibility for the slide, with the backlog for tanks, both liquid and bulk, growing. Expect backlog to contract as we move through early summer, and for this trend to reverse when 2023 orderboards are fully opened.”