Strong heavy truck demand forecast into early 2025

Continued healthy activity for heavy vocational trucks since September suggests some level of prebuying has begun on top of strong end market demand as buyers look to get ahead of the EPA’s 2027 Clean Truck regulation and 2028’s ZEV-targeting GHG-3 regulation*, ACT Research reported in the latest release of its North American Commercial Vehicle OUTLOOK.

Photo: Becky Schultz

Even with softening tractor demand in early 2025, vocational truck production is expected to continue at high levels at the start of the year, according to Kenny Vieth, ACT’s president and senior analyst. He noted that vocational builds rose to 513 units per day in November 2024, a level not seen since 2006, then rose again to 537 units per day in December.

“Importantly, we note the vocational market’s chokepoint has not been capacity-constrained OEM components, but body-builder capacity constraints,” Vieth pointed out. “While improving, retail sales rates continue to lag build rates, resulting in inventory accumulation throughout last year.”

Vieth noted that, compared to a nearly 120,000 annualized build rate in recent months, retail sales rose to an averaged 111,000 annualized rate in Q4 2024.

As such, Vieth concluded: “Amid healthy demand, strong build and already high inventories, the industry’s capacity to sell finished products to end users could well be the limiting factor for production in 2025.”

*While the report includes GHG-3, ACT Research expects the rulemaking may ultimately be repealed or otherwise heavily rewritten under the Trump administration.