Medium-Duty Sales Spotty in November
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U.S. retail sales in November of Classes 4-7 commercial vehicles revealed the two lighter segments propping up the medium-duty market, with overall sales in the segment rising 1.7% to 18,637 compared with 18,318 last year, WardsAuto.com reported.
Classes 4-5 sales combined rose 15.4% to 10,270. Class 5 powered the gain with 8,246 sales. Ford dominated with 4,553 sales for a 55% share. Class 4 sales hit 2,024, led by Isuzu Commercial Truck of America Inc.’s 691 trucks.
Class 7 sales dropped 9.5% to 3,576 — the lowest of the year. Freightliner, a unit of Daimler Trucks North America, accounted for 1,843 of those for a 51.5% share.
Class 6 sales fell 12.3% to 4,791 compared with a year earlier. Ford Motor Co. led with 1,732 sales followed closely by Freightliner’s 1,620. Together the two companies accounted for a combined 69.9% share.
Some of that goes back to Traton SE subsidiary Navistar, which makes the International brand. Its fiscal year ends in October when its push intensifies for year-end sales, “and they don’t play as much in that Classes 4-5 space,” said Steve Tam, vice president of ACT Research — but annually are strong in Classes 6-7.
At the same time, Tam said medium-duty orders came in north of 20,000. While the November number matched levels from a month earlier, both were a step down from where the orders had previously been running, at about 25,000 a month on average.
“It’s just such a challenge for them to get access to all the ingredients to build a truck,” Tam said, referring to ongoing component shortages throughout the supply chain.
Year-to-date, medium-duty sales improved 12.5% to 217,318 compared with 193,246 a year earlier.
W.M. “Rusty” Rush, chairman, CEO and president of Rush Enterprises, said during a recent earnings call he believes Classes 4-7 production will not increase as quickly as in Class 8.
“We are pleased that Hino Trucks is back in production. But we do not expect the other medium-duty manufacturers we represent to significantly ramp up production for some time,” he said.
Hino Motors announced last year in December that issues with U.S.-required certification of several of its engines led its board to pause truck production in North America until the end of September 2021.
Hino said then-new model year vehicle sales in both the U.S. and Canada were postponed.
The pause affected operations at the Hino Motors Manufacturing U.S.A. plant in Mineral Wells, W.Va., and the Hino Motors Canada plant in Woodstock, Ontario.
In November, Hino sold 151 medium-duty trucks in the U.S., according to Wards; 144 in Class 6, 6 in Class 5 and 1 in Class 4.
Rush sells trucks from Peterbilt Motors Co., a brand of Paccar Inc.; International; Hino; Isuzu.; and Ford.
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