Truck CPC Shortages & Backorders Up To 10 Months.

According to data from ACT Research, just 9,510 new trucks were sold in May 2020, down from 18,761 in May and 19,714 in April. It might have been greater, but manufacturers sold more trucks from existing inventories than from the assembly line because of CPC shortages & other supplies including steel, plastic, semiconductors, and other materials.

In the long run, the lack of plastics, particularly the widely used polyethylene, may have a bigger impact on the construction industry than the lack of semiconductors, which has gotten more media attention. The most common plastic item in the world is polyethylene, and Texas provides 85% of the country’s supply.

According to Kenny Vieth, president, and senior analyst for ACT, “That deep freeze that we experienced in Texas back in February affected most of the plastic-producing equipment in the United States.” Your equipment is being used to process melted plastic. The system shutdown process is therefore quite exact. Because the machinery abruptly ceased operating when the plants lost power, the shutdown routine wasn’t followed. The melted product froze in the machines while they waited for the lights to turn on, necessitating a time-consuming cleaning and repair operation for the parts and tubing that weren’t damaged.

Some of these shortages are only an unavoidable side effect of the revival of the economy. That common restriction always persists when the industry grows. Vieth believes that better times are coming; all it requires is time to begin the process.

“I believe things will improve going forward. And I believe it will improve quickly, “he commented. Only 23,100 trucks were ordered for the North American market in May, but this doesn’t indicate that carriers aren’t keen to make a purchase.

Vieth claims that the “near-term backlog is filled.” OEM order books for 2022 are also still primarily closed.

Simply put, no production slots are available for trucks with a 2021 model year. Kenny Vieth – ACT

Manufacturers typically start taking orders in October, but according to Vieth, this year they’ll start earlier. In the past, they’ve started as early as July. When they do, according to Vieth, things will “explode.” In the next few months, he predicted, “we’re expecting to see that backlog of 250,000 units expand to 300,000 or more.” At the current build rate, it would take 9.9 months to finish the quarter-million-order backlog if no more orders were received.

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