Transport Topics

Retail sales for trucks in classes 4 through 7 sank 16.3% in May compared with a year earlier to just below 17,000, Wards Intelligence reported. It was the largest year-over-year percentage decline to date in 2022. Sales were 16,859 compared with 20,134 a year earlier, according to Wards. One truck maker said the priority in production has been and will continue to be heavy-duty trucks versus medium-duty, but said manufacturing pressure for both sectors is easing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The nationwide average price for a gallon of gasoline has hit $5 for the first time ever. Auto club AAA said the average price June 11 was a fraction of a penny over 5 dollars. Motorists in some parts of the country, especially California, are paying far above that. The national average price has jumped 19 cents in just the past week, and it is up $1.93 from this time last year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

U.S. Class 8 retail sales in May rose 13.9% compared with a year earlier to just clear 20,000, Wards Intelligence reported June 10. A trend is building. Sales in the two previous months also percolated higher compared with almost every month in the past 12 months.May sales were 20,713 compared with 18,187 in the 2021 period. All truck makers but two increased sales in May compared with a year earlier. Volvo Trucks North America climbed the most, 80.2% to 2,546 and a 12.3% share in May. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

House Transportation leaders called on the nation’s top transportation officer to increase resources for the expansion of parking facilities for truck drivers. Reps. Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat, and Sam Graves, a Missouri Republican, wrote to Secretary Pete Buttigieg, saying that increased funding for truck parking availability would help alleviate long-standing supply chain inefficiencies. The trucking industry has cited a lack of parking spaces as a top concern for several years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Robin Hutcheson, President Joe Biden’s nominee to oversee FMCSA, discussed administration efforts to bolster the trucking industry during her confirmation hearing June 8. She appeared before the Senate Commerce Committee, assuring the panel her team is focused on the implementation of trucking workforce provisions included in the infrastructure law, such as an apprenticeship to allow commercial drivers under 21 to operate trucks interstate. Committee Chairman Sen. Maria Cantwell’s office told us she expects to schedule a committee vote on Hutcheson this summer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Uber Freight and Waymo Via have entered into a partnership that aims to integrate Uber’s freight marketplace with Waymo’s automated truck technology, the companies announced June 7. The businesses plan to blend their products and collaborate on development of tools and infrastructure to advance deployment of autonomous trucks for Uber Freight’s shipper and carrier customers. Waymo also intends to reserve billions of miles of its goods-only capacity for the Uber Freight network as part of the long-term agreement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The average price of diesel shot up last week by 16.4 cents to $5.703 a gallon, according to Energy Information Administration data released June 6. The previous record, notched about a month ago, was $5.623. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

North American Class 8 orders fell to 14,000 units, ACT Research reported June 3, citing truck makers’ preliminary data, as underlying conditions that held back order intake sharply in April were little changed. Orders a year earlier hit 23,072, according to ACT. The last time Class 8 orders were in the 14,000-unit range was February 2020. FTR pegged May orders at 13,300. Class 8 orders have totaled 270,000 units over the past 12 months, according to FTR. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg earlier this week kicked off a construction project in Nevada that will upgrade an aging Interstate 15 interchange to improve travel for truckers and all drivers accessing the Las Vegas Strip. Buttigieg noted that the interchange project will replace a bridge, improve access ramps, double sidewalk widths for pedestrians and add advanced traffic safety features to reduce crashes while dramatically improving traffic flows into and out of the Strip. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

President Joe Biden’s recent interstate designation of a New Mexico-to-Texas freight corridor will give truckers a less congested route for future U.S. trade with Mexico and Canada. Departments of transportation in New Mexico and Texas have begun evaluating their portions of a new freight corridor since Biden on March 15 designated an entire roadway system, called Ports-to-Plains Corridor, as a future interstate highway when signing the fiscal 2022 omnibus appropriations bill. This interstate designation had been sought since 1998. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has extended regulatory waivers related to truckers’ allowable work time, citing continuing public health concerns over COVID-19. The waiver associated with commercial drivers’ maximum driving time for property-carrying vehicles was extended through Aug. 31. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association filed a federal lawsuit on May 27 alleging that California environmental regulators have failed to give manufacturers enough lead time to meet the state’s new, more rigid emissions standards. In its lawsuit, EMA alleges that the federal Clean Air Act requires that manufacturers be given “four full model years” of lead time before new emission standards become effective. The manufacturers said that the California Air Resources Board gave them only two years of lead time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The average price of a used Class 8 truck reached $101,192 in April. But April dipped compared with March and its record price of $101,716, marking only the second month-over-month decline since July 2020. Used Class 8 sales in April essentially were level at 22,100 compared with 21,700 in the 2021 period, according to ACT Research, and lower compared with 25,200 in March. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A federal court is finally hearing oral arguments in a 4-year-old legal challenge to the state of Rhode Island’s trucks-only tolling program. The trial in the lawsuit — filed by American Trucking Associations and two motor carriers over the Rhode Island Department of Transportation’s tolling plan — began Monday and is expected to last up to three weeks. ATA specifically alleges RhodeWorks tolling plan violates the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution by discriminating against interstate commerce and out-of-state truckers in both intent and effect. The program originated during the administration of then-Gov. Gina Raimondo, who now is secretary of the Commerce Department. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Truck tonnage in April increased on an annual basis but declined compared with March, American Trucking Associations reported. The seasonally adjusted ATA For-Hire Truck Tonnage figure of 115.8 dipped 2% from its 118.2 result from March, the first sequential decline after eight consecutive gains. But the index rose 1.8% compared with April of 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Cargo continues to flow into Los Angeles despite some of the COVID lockdowns in China, Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka says. “The situation in China may lead to a lull in volume with a fairly quick bounceback once the lockdowns end,” said Seroka. Los Angeles reported its second-busiest April in its 115-year-plus history, moving 887,357 20-foot-equivalent containers, even as it saw a 6.3% decline from April 2021’s record of 946,966 TEUs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The spot market has been declining, but with rates and volumes still above historic norms it’s unclear where it will stabilize. Ben Cubitt, senior vice president of consulting at Transplace, says rates per mile have declined since Q4 from $3.50 to about $2.36. Truckstop.com regularly recorded more than a million daily postings on its load board platform throughout last year. That has steadily decreased since the first week of January and load postings were around 900,000 daily during the week of May 8. Dean Croke, principal analyst at DAT Solutions, says rates are still historically high but carrier operating costs have gone up as much as 50 cents a mile over last year. Cubitt expects spot rates to start leveling out midsummer based on historic norms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

American Trucking Associations in a 29-page written comment on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposal to reduce nitrogen oxides said it generally supports the goal. However, the federation stressed that its fleet members’ message is to minimize purchase, maintenance, warranty and operational costs and maximize performance, durability and driver satisfaction. Of the two options in the proposal, ATA rejects one similar to the California Air Resources Board standard, calling it an “unattainable approach as the next national standard for diesel freight trucks for the rest of the country.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Classes 4-7 retail truck sales dropped 15.4% in April compared with a year earlier, according to industry analyst Wards Intelligence. Total sales were 16,439 compared with 19,431 in the 2021 period. The combined Classes 4- 5 segment drove the decline, falling 38.1% to 7,117 compared with 11,502 a year earlier. It also marked the segment’s lowest volume of the year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nearly 43,000 people were killed on U.S. roads last year, the most in 16 years as Americans returned to the highways after the pandemic forced many to stay at home. The 10.5% jump over 2020 numbers was the largest percentage increase since the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began its fatality data collection system in 1975. Forty-four states had increases in traffic deaths in 2021 compared with the previous year, led by Texas, California and Florida. Posting declines were Wyoming, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Maryland and Maine. Rhode Island's figures were unchanged. Fatalities involving at least one large truck were up 13%. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices