Heavy truck sales really collapsed during the great recession, falling to a low of 180 thousand SAAR in May 2009. Then heavy truck sales increased to a new all time high of 575 thousand SAAR in September 2019.
However heavy truck sales started declining late last year due to lower oil prices.
Note: “Heavy trucks – trucks more than 14,000 pounds gross vehicle weight.”
Click on graph for larger image.
Heavy truck sales really declined towards the end of March due to COVID-19 and the collapse in oil prices.
Heavy truck sales are now back to March 2020 levels, but still below February 2020 (pre-COVID).
Heavy truck sales were at 415 thousand SAAR in September, down from 438 thousand SAAR in August, and down 26% from 563 thousand SAAR in September 2019.
Year-to-date heavy truck sales are down 28% compared to the same period in 2019 (288.5 thousand in 2020 compared to 399.4 thousand in 2019 through September).