North America heavy GVW Class 8 commercial vehicle preliminary net orders for November surprised on the downside, coming in well below October actuals, as reported by ACT Research Co., LLC (ACT). The final numbers, which will be released mid-December, will approach 20,700 units for heavy duty Class 8 trucks and 13,400 for medium Classes 5-7 vehicles. The preliminary net order numbers are typically accurate to within 5% of actual.

“We believe there was a pull-forward of demand in October to counteract the impact of price increases for the new model year,” said Steve Tam, ACT vice president-commercial vehicle sector. “The underlying fundamentals in the heavy truck market remain healthy. Classes 5-7 preliminary net orders continue to flow in a very narrow band. As a case in point, when seasonally adjusted and annualized, the Classes 5-7 net order matched the YTD average,” he added.

ACT is the recognized leading publisher of new and used commercial vehicle (CV) industry data, market analysis and forecasting services for the North American market, as well as the China CV market. ACT’s CV services are used by all major North American truck and trailer manufacturers and their suppliers, as well as the banking and investment community. For more information on ACT, please visit http://www.actresearch.n