According to the latest release of ACT Research’s North American Commercial Vehicle Outlook, the setup for the entire commercial vehicle industry remains unchanged from its recent trends of strong demand and constrained supply, but major automotive CEOs recently reported that they believe the semiconductor shortage bottomed out in September and October.

“Despite rock-solid demand metrics across the spectrum of medium and heavy-duty vehicle types, industry capacity remains range-bound across a broad front of supply-chain constraints,” Kenny Vieth, president and senior analyst at ACT Research, said. “Those constraints are not localized CV industry specific challenges but continue as pandemic-driven failures in a globally reliant web of interrelated supply chains [continue]. Rebuilding complex global networks requires the system to spin at roughly the same speed, which it is decidedly not doing at present.

“On the positive side of the ledger, in the recent round of Q3 earnings calls, major automotive CEOs indicated that they believe the semiconductor shortage bottomed in the September-October period. Backing up those claims, for the first time in in eight months, automotive inventories in the U.S. actually rose sequentially in October. Less positive is that despite their lofty roles at the top of the global automotive industry, the CEOs remain less than forthcoming about when they believe the chip situation will experience material easing.”