Heavy Truck Sales Mostly Unchanged YoY in April

This graph shows heavy truck sales since 1967 using data from the BEA. The dashed line is the April 2025 seasonally adjusted annual sales rate (SAAR) of 505 thousand.

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 record high of 570 thousand SAAR in April 2019.

Click on graph for larger image.

Note: "Heavy trucks - trucks more than 14,000 pounds gross vehicle weight."

Heavy truck sales declined sharply at the beginning of the pandemic, falling to a low of 288 thousand SAAR in May 2020.  

Heavy truck sales were at 505 thousand SAAR in April, up from 450 thousand in March, and up 0.8% from 501 thousand SAAR in April 2025 (essentially unchanged YoY).  

Year-to-date (NSA) sales are down 4.6%.

Usually, heavy truck sales decline sharply prior to a recession and sales were solid in April.  It is likely that some April truck buyers rushed to beat the tariffs - and we might see some weakness next month.

As I mentioned yesterday, light vehicle sales were strong in April at 17.27 million SAAR as some buyers rushed to beat the tariffs.

The second graph shows light vehicle sales since the BEA started keeping data in 1967.  

Light vehicle sales were at 17.27 million SAAR in April, down 3.1% from March, and up 7.8% from April 2024.