Summary
CK Commercial Vehicle Research released their Second Quarter 2009 Fleet Sentiment Report, which gives some insight into truck / trailer buyers approach to equipment planning. As we wrote recently about the math questions, this supports some of the general trends and resultant costs.
Analysis
As we and other have written herein, trucking fleets are lengthening out their replacement cycles for both trucks (tractors) and trailers. This can be seen in recent quarterlies from Navistar, Paccar, Cummins, Wabash National, etc. Also noted are their continuing down-sizing and plant closures / relocations.
The CK summary tells us that two-thirds of their respondents are seeing their fleets get older. Our recent surveys show that we are increasing at about one-half of a year per year on new trucks. Used averages are lower due to the pool.
Over half stated that they had trucks parked at an average of 15% of their fleet. This would result in a cost of $0.04-0.05 per mile cost. Of course, this will mostly be made back up when they are put back into service. In other words, if one can cash flow it today - it’ll be OK later.
A third had reduced their fleet size by about 15%, which we have seen in many public filings. A third also reported that annual average miles had dropped - no surprise, but 100 mile per week = about a penny per mile. The good news again is that trucks are not worn out by age as much as miles (another cash flow issue).
Over half of the fleets reported higher maintenance, but our numbers show that the bigger impact has to do with ’02 heat issues (up $0.02 per mile) and ’07 engines (another several cents per mile). We must separate overall maintenance costs and stick to cost per mile here too. Regarding operating costs, most savings are from active programs in slowing trucks down and reducing idling.
To summarize, there is nothing really new here - but it offers a great industry calibration.
