Senior Reporter
Medium-Duty Sales Spotty in November
![Hino XL trucks Hino XL trucks](/sites/default/files/styles/article_full_width_image/public/images/articles/hino-xl-1200.jpg)
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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.
![Image](/sites/default/files/class4-5-300.jpg)
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.
![Image](/sites/default/files/class6-650_0.jpg)
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.
![Image](/sites/default/files/class7-650_0.jpg)
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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