Commercial Vehicle Market

Typically, I'm pretty good at predicting trends in the commercial vehicle market. This particular occasion, though, I was stumped with a capital "S." I thought that with the glut of engine and emissions regulation changes, there would be a noticeable increase in the sales trend for vehicles with medium-sized engines putting out less Horsepower, Particulate Matter (PM) and Nitrogen Oxide (NOx). The smallest engines are too uneconomical for heavy duty trucks, and larger engines are too heavy and full of pollutants - so naturally the engines in the 10 liter to 13 liter groove would be growing in acceptance, right!? Right? Well, you know what go-eth before the fall.

To prove my point (rather than find the facts), I crunched some numbers. Turns out, medium-sized engines have been dropping in popularity with surprising regularity. In fact, over the past five years, engines with a liter size between 10.8-13 have gone from 41% of the engine population to under 30% of the engine population in class 8 trucks.

The above means that 14 liter engines and larger, combined with all small engines under 10.8 liters, have risen from 59% of the total population to just over 70% in the past five years. I have surmised transportation companies, and the commercial vehicle industry in general, are going through a shift in business practices. Some companies are committing to more local transit, while others have stuck to their long-haul roots. Thus, smaller engines have been mated to local transit trucks, and the larger engines with more power and lasting ability have been placed in the long-haul carriers - at least this is my assumption. I personally don't care what the size of the engine is on the truck as long as the load is on the road, but I am interested in sales trends so I would love to know if the engine size in your truck is consistent with my findings - and if so why?

Posted by Therran Oliphant, Account Representative, Commercial Vehicle Group, Polk (08.28.2009)