Trailers orders have totaled 264,000 units over the past 12 months. Production fell more than 3 percent from June on a per-day basis while backlogs dropped 8 percent and remain 12 percent below a year ago.
“Orders usually fall as fleet managers take a break and turn their focus to next year,” says Don Ake, FTR vice president of commercial vehicles. “The bright spots this month are the strong flatbed orders, and that production did not fall much from June’s impressive totals. This indicates production should be fairly steady the rest of the year.”
Ake expects August orders to dip before recovering in September, noting “most fleets have their orders in for this year. The fall order season should be robust, as freight demand continues to grow and fleets lose productivity due to use of Electronic Logging Devices.”
