Class 8 orders climb 71% in July despite backlog

Demand for new equipment remains strong, as shown by final North American Class 8 net orders, which rose again to 22,562 units in July, up 71% year over year despite being down 29% month over month on a seasonally adjusted basis, per ACT Research’s latest State of the Industry: NA Class 5-8 report.

“Robust demand for new equipment continues, supported by improved spot and contract rates, as evidenced by the recent earnings strength among publicly traded truckload carriers,” said Carter Vieth, research analyst at ACT Research. “While ongoing EPA uncertainty could influence the coming order ramp, carrier profitability is rising quickly, and freight conditions are improving across the board.”

ACT’s North American Commercial Vehicle OUTLOOK cited “meaningfully improved freight rates” as buoying new equipment demand. Other factors included:

• severe contractions in the driver supply following four years of trucking overcapacity;
• the Supreme Court’s Montgomery decision relating to broker liability*;
• stricter ELD/HOS rule enforcement;
• new carrier registration rules adding to supply constraints and rate momentum;
• the recovery in US manufacturing;
• and ongoing data center and utility buildout.

The month-over-month decline reflects not a drop in demand, ACT continued, but the impact of full 2026 build slots, with remaining production capacity for the year oversubscribed by 35,000 units.

“Underlining the robustness of the current demand environment has been the backlog boosting surge in tractor orders that began last December,” stated Ken Vieth, ACT’s president and senior analyst. “Year-ago August tractor order backlogs fell to a nearly 13-year low. In our latest industry data, June-ending order backlogs were more than double year-ago levels. While the front-end market metrics have maxed out available 2026 capacity, tractor sales remained below replacement levels in 1H’26, as industry OEMs and suppliers work to bring more production capacity online.”

While Ken Vieth anticipated many of the capacity constraints to persist or potentially worsen, he felt the seasonal easing in freight demand in Q3 would temporarily take some of the pressure off capacity.

“Higher rates and driver pay will begin to offset these constraints,” he said, “but the supply-side challenges for the industry are extraordinary as we move further into this new upcycle.”

_{*In Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC (May 14, 2026), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that freight brokers can be sued in state court for negligently hiring unsafe trucking companies.}