“In 2018, there was an explosion of orders across the industry, as dealers raced to get their places in rapidly growing out-year backlog queues. Underlying drivers of commercial vehicle demand are considerably hotter than they were three summers back, with 6%+ GDP growth, capacity constraints across multiple shipping modes, at/near-record trucking freight rates, surging carrier profits and record used equipment valuations providing deep support for Class 8 demand,” said Kenny Vieth, ACT’s president and senior analyst.