If it wasn’t a great quarter for trucking companies in the second quarter, particularly truckload carriers, the outlook for the companies that make or sell trucks was even worse.
Not every company did poorly; things are going well enough with other operations at truck retailer Rush Enterprises (NASDAQ: RUSHA) that it hiked its dividend. Ditto for engine manufacturer Cummins Inc. (NYSE: CMI).
But on its earnings calls with analysts, several companies that looked into the future–including those two aforementioned operations–saw a market for new heavy duty vehicles that is tepid at best and terrible at worst.
The stark numbers on the ground were captured by FTR in its recent preliminary estimate of June and July class 8 orders. The June order book was 8,900 units, a drop of 25% from May and down 36% from the prior year. July was stronger at 12,700 units, but that was down 7% year on year.
FTR said the 12-month cycle that ended in July showed an order book down 15% year-on-year.
Jennifer W. Rumsey, Cummins CEO, put a number on the expected size of the decline in that company’s call with analysts. (All quotes in this article are from transcripts of the earnings calls).
She said Cummins expected North America heavy and medium duty truck volumes to decline sequentially 25% to 30% in the third quarter. “We have seen truck orders recently reach multiyear lows and OEMs have initiated reduced work weeks through the next three weeks,” Rumsey said according to a transcript of the earnings call. “The duration of this reduced demand in North America truck markets will largely depend on the trajectory of the broader economy, the evolution of trade and tariff policies and the pace at which regulatory clarity emerges.”
It was Marvin Rush, the CEO of retailer Rush Enterprises, who was the most blunt in his outlook for the new truck market for the balance of 2025.
In response to an analyst’s question, Rush on his company’s call said new truck production “will be drastically down across all OEMs, because there’s just not any demand out there because uncertainty is there.”
While tariffs uncertainty was mentioned by several executives as a reason for the uncertainty, a recent development that occurred near the start of earnings season–the EPA’s decision to rescind the “endangerment finding” that permitted the agency to take steps to regulate greenhouse gases–has thrown another question mark into the market for new trucks.
EPA promulgated the new rule in 2022. The key deadline is a requirement calling for a more than 80% reduction in nitrogen oxides–NOx–emissions by 2027. The recent recession of the EPA’s power to regulate GHG under the endangerment finding does not immediately invalidate the NOx rule.
“We pulled the greenhouse gas stuff, but that still has not given any clarity as to what we’re going to get from an emissions perspective,” Rush said. Referring to the various NOx standards both current and planned in the 2027 rule, Rush asked what the final number would be. “Is it going to go somewhere in the middle?” he said. “The engine manufacturers and OEMs don’t even have direction yet from the government.”
Paccar’s CEO R. Preston Feight (NASDAQ: PCAR) on that company’s earnings call said he believed rules on greenhouse gas emissions in the Biden administration’s EPA 2024 rule that was seen as pushing zero emission vehicles “is likely not to change.” But he also said he does not expect additional GHG regulations on heavy duty trucks.
If the NOx rule is eliminated, Feight said, that should lead to a reduction in cost “which will encourage customers to be buying trucks probably beginning later in this year.”
Rush also cited California as a benchmark for a particularly troubled market. Class 8 sales in California reportedly have been extremely weak for many months given the uncertainty created by the state’s now withdrawn Advanced Clean Fleets rule and its blocked (but challenged by the state) Advanced Clean Trucks rule, together which mandated sales of zero emission vehicles.
“I don’t want to be like the whole country is like California has been the last 1.5 years,” Rush said. “But from a business perspective, it has been very very difficult on the truck sales side.”
Although the outlook was generally bleak, it wasn’t totally pessimistic. For example, Rush said reports about upcoming demand is “slightly better than it was in Q1. It’s not outstanding but you can see slight green shoots in there, but not a lot.”
From the company’s German headquarters, Eva Scherer, the CFO of Daimler Truck Holding AG (XETRA: DTG.DE) on her company’s earning call gave an example of those green shoots. She said July had shown a “pickup in order activity.”
It would be coming after a particularly difficult quarter. Daimler Truck CEO Karin Radstrom in his remarks on the call started with optimism about its North America segments. He said Daimler’s Trucks North America segment was “a strong contributor to our results, delivering 12.9% return on sales despite a 20% drop in unit sales.”
But Scherer said Trucks North America was the only segment in the Daimler empire in the quarter that had a negative EBIT impact, “primarily due to the economic uncertainty in the U.S., which led to reduced sales volumes.”
And Radstrom said for the half, the 135,000 trucks the company sold in North America were down 7% year-over-year.
However, the July order flow was strong enough that Scherer said she believed the output numbers in North America for Daimler could be between 135,000 to 155,000 in the quarter.
Discussion on the calls about tariffs repeatedly swung back to the same term: uncertainty. Feight’s comments on tariffs was similar to what was heard on other calls.
“If we get confidence and certainty around tariff structures in the third quarter, then I think customers’ reaction to that will be positive,” he said. “I think that would be favorable for PACCAR. So there’s quite a few reasons to weigh in there for our confidence as the year goes along here.”
But the tariffs might also mean price increases are on the horizon.
On the earnings call for trailer manufacturer Wabash National (NYSE: WNC), president and CEO Brent Yeagy said while the company operates with “95% domestic sourcing and (a) U.S.-based manufacturing footprint,” that protection from higher tariffs has its limits.
“We’re not entirely immune to cost increases, particularly in key inputs and services,” Yeagy said. “To date, we’ve been successful in holding off on price adjustments, and we remain focused on operational efficiency and cost discipline to offset as much pressure as possible. However, based on the current trajectory, we expect that pricing for 2026 orders will need to be adjusted to reflect the rising cost environment.”
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