It’s a new year, with new trade regulations expected to be announced when President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20. Trump threatened wide-sweeping tariffs throughout the campaign, and after he was elected, he said Mexico and Canada will be among the targeted countries. Those tariffs could have the biggest impact on the U.S. trucking industry.
Fleets have been paying close attention, and Class 8 orders increased in November, likely due to the prospect of tariffs on exports from Mexico, where major truck manufacturers have plants. And, according to ACT Research, Class 8 truck manufacturing is expected to be lower overall in 2025 as fleets take a cautious stance amid anticipated economic moderation.
President-elect Trump has vowed to implement a 25% tariff on all imported goods from Canada and Mexico, the United States’ two largest trading partners, with the value of goods traveling via truck across both borders totaling more than $996 billion in 2023. Heavy Duty Trucking quoted Avery Vise, FTR Research’s vice president of trucking, as saying there could be an increase in cross-border truck transportation prior to Inauguration Day as manufacturers try to move inventories in Mexico and Canada, but questions remain about how tariffs could affect truck makers, in particular, longer term. “A major portion of Class 8 production for the U.S. market occurs in Mexico, and that is in addition to all the component production,” Vise said.
Fleets may be trying to get ahead of the tariffs, as more than 40% of Class 8 trucks built for the U.S. market are manufactured in Mexico. Class 8 truck orders in November were up 12% from October. FTR Research’s Dan Moyer, the senior analyst of commercial vehicles, said that “orders over the next month or so could see a boost as fleets aim to pre-empt potential tariffs. If tariffs take effect in Q1 2025, OEMs may struggle to quickly ramp up production beforehand due to labor and supply chain constraints, especially during the slow production months of December to February. High Class 8 inventory levels could partially meet any surge in retail demand.”
Transport Topics reported the trucking industry is slowing rebalancing as demand and capacity return to normal and pointed to ACT Research’s supply-demand balance index, which increased from 48.8 points in September to 57.2 points in October. Dean Croke, DAT Freight & Analytics’ principal analyst, told Transport Topics that capacity continues to exit the market, and rates started improving on a year-over-year basis in October. “We’ve been averaging about 7,000 carriers exiting the market all year, every month. And that just speaks to this massive influx that came in 2021 and 2022. And by my accounts of the 480,000 carriers that have joined since June of 2020, 18% are still active in the market, and that’s extraordinary.”
The trucking industry faces economic moderation, regulatory impacts, and market realignments in 2025, according to a mid-December ACT Research report. Key points in the report said:
“One type of index I put much less weight on when trying to read freight market dynamics (and more broadly economic activity) is consumer sentiment measures,” which are too attached to politics, Jason Miller, a Michigan State University supply chain professor, wrote in a LinkedIn post. “I’m a strong believer that measures such as inflation-adjusted investment in residential structures, oil and gas well drilling, momentum of manufacturing new orders, various industrial production measures, various inflation-adjusted wholesale trade data (both sales and inventories), import data, and data on inflation-adjusted retail sales and inventories are more useful for shippers and carriers to anticipate freight demand.”
Werner Enterprises’ attorneys have asked the Texas Supreme Court to reverse a $100 million verdict handed down in a 2014 fatal accident case in which a pickup truck crossed a median and struck a Werner truck traveling in the opposite direction on a snowy highway. A jury in 2018 determined the Werner driver’s insufficient training and supervision “proximately caused the collision,” and an appeals court upheld that ruling, Transport Topics reported. A Werner attorney argued before the Texas Supreme Court in early December that the appeals court “for the first time has held that a driver in his own lane under control of his vehicle is liable when somebody on the opposite side of an interstate highway loses control, spins out, crosses over a 30-foot median plus the shoulders, runs into the driver in his own lane with no time to react.”
Paccar is recalling 221,000 Kenworth and Peterbilt trucks made up of 23 models with manufactured years 2021 to 2025 because of needed software updates to Bendix EC80 advanced electronic control units (ECUs). ECUs are used in safety systems such as automatic traction control and anti-lock braking and collision mitigation. Electrical noise interference could cause the ECUs to “incorrectly process commands or stop functioning,” according to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration letter.
Chicago-based freight technology providers FourKites and project44 have resolved their legal disputes, although details were not disclosed. Project44 had accused FourKites CEO Matthew Elenjickal of sending defamatory emails in 2019. FourKites had filed a complaint against project44 in 2022 over the hiring of two of its former employees.
Commercial Carrier Journal (CCJ) reported that Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America (HMGMA), in cooperation with 3PL Glovis America, is deploying 21 XCIENT heavy-duty hydrogen fuel-cell electric trucks for clean logistics operations. HMGMA, Hyundai’s first dedicated electric vehicle mass production factory, is located in Bryan County, Georgia. During the initial rollout, the trucks are transporting vehicle parts from suppliers across the region to the plant. “This is delivering on our strategy and vision to showcase a closed-loop hydrogen logistics ecosystem and improve the environmental sustainability of manufacturing operations,” said Jim Park, Hyundai Motor North America’s senior vice president of commercial vehicle and hydrogen business development.
Dave Brajkovich, the chief technology officer at LTL carrier Polaris Transportation, told the CCJ that consolidation among freight tech providers is a good thing because no single plug-and-play provider perfectly meets an individual carrier’s needs. “I think it’s favorable when there is some consolidation because all of these options are just too much for someone to really peg the exact fit in your industry, and you can spend tons of time and money trying to chase the right tool,” he said. “So consolidation, I think, is good. It’s giving people a better opportunity to shortlist technology and needs, and it could probably become more affordable for smaller companies to invest into those types of tools, because once they consolidate, they’re not paying like 16 different subscriptions.”
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