Heavy truck sales continue to decline, and the downward pressure on the U.S. economy is highlighted

Our reporter? Wang Pengjie

Just like the price of a local McDonald’s Big Mac burger can be used as a benchmark to measure the price of goods in a certain place, it is an indicator that roughly estimates the performance of the US economy. That’s heavy truck sales. As a country running on wheels, heavy trucks are the most important link in logistics and transportation in the United States. You can tell the future by just looking at the leaves. The latest data shows that the sales situation of heavy trucks in the United States is not optimistic.

According to data from the authoritative American car magazine WardsAuto, the sales of Class 8 heavy trucks in the United States fell by 62.5% year-on-year in May, from 24,424 units in the same period last year to 9,165 units, which was the same as the level of 9,712 units in February 2011. Quite a bit, setting a record for the second-lowest single-month sales in history.

Picture source: WardsAuto

Coincidentally, the lowest month in history was April 2020, with 4,000 vehicles.

The sales of other major truck manufacturers are also terrible. For example, the sales volume of Freightliner, a brand of Daimler Trucks North America, was 3,104 units that month, a year-on-year decrease of 63.6%;

Kenworth Truck that month Sales volume was 1,277, down 65% year-on-year;

Peterbilt Motor sales were 1,119, down 71% year-on-year;

Volvo Trucks North America's sales were 1,084, down 60.2% year-on-year;

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Mack Trucks sales volume was 879, a year-on-year decrease of 51.5%, and the market share was 9.6%.

Various data show that the recovery period of the U.S. economy is far from coming. Some media quoted Dan Clark, head of financial analysis agency BMO Transportation Finance, as saying that U.S. heavy truck sales have been hovering at a low level for two years, and now the outside world's expectations for economic activity in the next one or two years have been lowered. In this case , there is no possibility of a V-shaped recovery in sales of Class? 8 series heavy trucks.

Although in June, various parts of the United States have started the process of resuming work, the wave of protests against racism and the delay in the epidemic have led to low willingness of workers to return to work. Officials from the union representing major U.S. auto assembly plants say workers are currently on strike in higher-than-normal numbers and some employees have called for shutdowns because they fear the coronavirus will be detrimental to them and their families.

Contradictory to this, due to the suspension of production and production in the past two months, the cash flow of automobile manufacturers has almost dried up. Coupled with the unsmooth economic operation, the pressure for repayment is also very high. A spokesman for Ford said the company has worked with the United Auto Workers and medical experts on safety protocols and said it was hiring more temporary workers to make up for a potential increase in absenteeism.

Toyota Motor said that about 40 U.S. factory workers have tested positive for the virus since resuming operations in May. A company spokesman said that while there are no issues with employee absences (many of the company's factories still have limited opening schedules), the company expects to use more temporary workers to fill the vacancies of regular employees once they are fully operational.

This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.