November Classes 4-7 Sales Dip 2.5%, Second-Least in 2022
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November U.S. retail sales of Classes 4-7 trucks overall fell 2.5%. It was the second-smallest decline this year, which so far has posted only one positive month compared with a year earlier, Wards Intelligence reported.
Sales were 18,163 compared with 18,637 a year earlier, according to Wards. Sales declined 1.3% in February and rose 11.7% in August.
For November, Class 7 sales rose 6.1% to 3,793. Class 6 shot up 26.6% to 6,064. However, Classes 4-5 sales dropped 19.1% to 8,306, led by a sharp decline in Class 5 sales at Ford Motor Co., which moved 3,090 units compared with the 2021 period’s 4,553.
For Steve Tam, vice president at ACT Research, the medium-duty environment remains somewhat at the mercy of truck makers that also sell in the Class 8 space and divert common parts to support that higher-margin business.
“It continues to be the same challenge. People are going to do whatever they need to do to maximize revenue and profits,” Tam said.
Year-to-date sales of 200,869 in Classes 4-7 were off 7.6% compared with 217,318 a year earlier.
The medium-duty customer, Tam said, is continuing to be held at arm’s-length with promises they will get their truck amid backlogs. “Just keep waiting. Keep waiting,” they’re told, he said.
In Class 7, Freightliner, a brand of Daimler Truck North America, notched a 47.2% share on sales of 1,791.
International, a brand of Traton Group’s Navistar, was next with a 29% share on 1,101 sales.
In Class 6, Ford, with 2,183 sales, beat out Freightliner, with 1,665 sales. Together they accounted for 63.4% of the sales in that class.
In Class 4, Isuzu Commercial Truck of America led with 835 sales, or 39.9%, out of 2,092. Year-to-date, Isuzu had 7,448 sales, or 34.4% of the total 21,642.
Isuzu also made 1,133 Class 6 sales and 46 Class 7 sales in the 11-month period.
In February 2021, the company reached an agreement with Cummins Inc. to collaborate on the development and sale of medium-sized diesel engines for Isuzu’s powertrain business and to conduct joint research into various advanced technologies.
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“Cummins will supply Isuzu with medium-sized B6.7 diesel engines to use in Classes 6 and 7 medium-duty trucks. Vehicles equipped with this engine will be introduced to global markets to meet the needs of customers around the world,” Isuzu President Masanori Katayama wrote in his annual message.
“Currently, we are planning to start the mass production of lightweight battery-electric vehicles by the end of fiscal 2023,” he added. “Furthermore, we are seeking to introduce by 2030 trucks and buses equipped with new powertrains, such as battery-electric vehicles, and fuel-cell vehicles, leveraging the results of our collaborations with Cummins Inc., the Volvo Group (which sold its UD Trucks unit to Isuzu in December 2019 for about $2.3 billion), and Commercial Japan Partnership Technologies.”
