Featured Truck sales: bad news

Source: https://www.ttnews.com/articles/m

U.S. medium-duty truck sales continued to trend below the prior year by dropping nearly 30% in August, according to data from Wards Intelligence.

Classes 4-7 retail truck sales for the month decreased 28.2% to 16,359 units from 22,797 a year earlier. Monthly sales figures have been mostly down year over year since May 2024. The latest sales figures also showed a sequential 4.9% decrease from the 17,204 units reported in July.​

Source_2: Daily Automotive News

DANGER SIGN: U.S. HD TRUCK SALES PLUNGE
There’s a lot of uncertainty about the future of the U.S. economy because of tariffs, and here’s a danger sign. Heavy truck sales started dropping in May, a month after President Trump announced the tariffs. Last month, Class 4 through 7 retail trucks fell more than 28%. Industry experts say that’s because there’s been a drop in freight shipments and they blame the tariffs for that. And for the full year, sales are down about 7-8%. These truck sales can be considered a leading indicator of what lies ahead for the economy, and this doesn’t look good.​

Bob Wilson

 

Those are delivery sized trucks that move goods to depots or retail. Like watching trains or shipping/port manifests, it is the pulse of a consumer economy.

Bob Wilson