According to ACT Research’s State of the Industry: Classes 5-8 Vehicles report set to be released in mid-October, preliminary NA Class 8 net orders in September were 53,700 units, while NA Classes 5-7 net orders were 26,600 units.

“The strength in orders reflects OEMs’ having fully opened their orderboards for 2023 a bit earlier than normal, as the seasonally weak period for truck orders typically runs May-September,” Eric Crawford, VP and senior analyst at ACT, said. “As such, typical seasonal adjustment is not as useful a statistic this month: September’s orders translate to 60,900 on an SA basis (+161% month-to-month, +94% year-to-year), equivalent to more than 730k units on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis.”

“Using an October seasonal adjustment factor (typically the beginning of next-year orders) would translate to 43,800 units, equivalent to ~526k on an annualized basis. September Class 8 orders were sensational no matter how you slice the data,” Crawford said. “Over the past 12 months, 249,800 Class 8 orders have been booked. MD demand was strong. September Classes 5-7 orders increased 39% sequentially (+7% y/y) to 26,600 units.”