Class 8 commercial vehicle market finishes 2022 strong: ACT Research December

After seeing healthy business in November, the market for North American Class 8 commercial vehicles ended 2022 on a strong note with a preliminary total of 30,000 net orders in December, according to ACT Research, a publisher of commercial vehicle industry data, market analysis and forecasts for clients all over the world. ACT will publish final order numbers in mid-January.

Eric Crawford, ACT vice president and senior analyst, said December’s order intake was “a solid end to a robust final four months of the year.”

According to Crawford, order intake was 4% below the year-to-date monthly average heading into the month, which when coupled with a 26% month-over-month decline, could have meant weaker demand.

But after further analysis, Crawford said, ACT found that a year-end seasonal uptick beginning ahead of schedule — in September 2022, which recorded the highest monthly order total on record — skewed the year-to-date average upward.

December 2022 also saw 17,700 preliminary net orders for vehicles in Classes 5-7, which was a 17% month-to-month decline.

Crawford said that large cancellations, reflecting a multi-quarter correction in cancellation reporting, affected volumes at one of the large OEM groups, which had a negative impact on December’s Class 5-7 figures. ACT said the cancellations will be reported in mid-January with the rest of the final data.