March medium-duty truck orders drop 32 percent from one year ago

Photo: Freightliner

March orders for new trucks in the medium-duty weight segment dropped 32 percent compared with the same month in 2018.

Preliminary orders for Class 5-7 trucks fell to the 20,000-order mark in March, down 23 percent from a month earlier, when orders were around 25,200, according to ACT Research.

“Classes 5-7 orders took their first respite in more than a year,” said Steve Tam, vice president of ACT.

March orders for new trucks in the heaviest Class 8 weight segment also experienced a significant decline as they plummeted 66 percent compared with the same month in 2018.

Final March new truck order numbers will be available in mid-April.


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Clarissa Hawes

Clarissa has covered all aspects of the trucking industry for 18 years. She is an award-winning journalist known for her investigative and business reporting. Before joining FreightWaves, she wrote for Land Line Magazine and Trucks.com. If you have a news tip or story idea, send her an email to chawes@firecrown.com or @cage_writer on X, formerly Twitter.