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“I think there’s orders being created or orders being placed without the demand behind it," says VTNA President Peter Voorhoeve. (Volvo Trucks North America)

DUBLIN, Va. — North American Class 8 truck purchases in 2026 and 2027 will increase compared with 2025 but are unlikely to live up to the promise of record February orders, Volvo Trucks North America President Peter Voorhoeve told Transport Topics.

“I think that we will see an increased order intake in 2026 as a result of a mild pre-buy effect,” the truck maker’s top executive said at the New River Valley manufacturing plant.

But, Voorhoeve said, there is an explicit contradiction between orders and sales so far in 2026 in which the freight market conditions do not support the data for orders even if the typical lag between the two is taken into account.

North American Class 8 truck orders jumped 156% year over year to 46,200 units in February, according to ACT Research data.

Omdia Automotive data show Class 8 sales in February fell 17.4% to 12,992 trucks from 15,725 a year earlier, in what was the lowest February total since 2017. The most recent year-on-year increase was seen in June 2025.

“I think there’s orders being created or orders being placed without the demand behind it if you look at the freight market for the moment,” said Voorhoeve, highlighting a freight rate recession that is heading for four years in length.

The current North American order board stands in stark contrast to the last time orders were running so high in 2018. At that time, truck makers’ factories were running at capacity, whereas now that is nowhere near the case.

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VTNA's�� New River Valley Plant in Dublin, Va., can produce the VNR and VNL models. (Volvo Trucks North America)

VTNA and sister company Mack Trucks paused production at North American assembly plants such as New River Valley for various weeks in the first quarter of 2026 due to weak demand in the U.S. and Canada. The two truck makers also halted production on individual days in the final quarter of 2025 due to weak demand.

Both truck makers and their peers downsized their production plant head counts in 2025 due to ongoing market weakness.

Carriers received improved rates over the past couple of months but not enough to justify the increase in orders, Voorhoeve said, noting that the average fleet age is now 6.6 or 6.7 years compared with a more typical target of less than 6 years.

Class 8 tractors and trucks are set to become more expensive, whether that is because of tariffs or the changes to regulations, leading to the mild pre-buy — a colloquialism for fleets purchasing trucks before stiffer Environmental Protection Agency tailpipe emissions become effective.

Sales in 2027 are expected to be little changed from 2026, said Voorhoeve, with the majority of the demand not likely to materialize until the second half of 2027.

VTNA parent Volvo Group lifted its North American 2026 industrywide sales expectations by 15,000 trucks or 6% to 265,000 trucks when releasing its fourth-quarter 2025 earnings call in January.

Brighter prospects open up beyond that, said Voorhoeve.

“I think that if you … look at the decade right between now and 2030, the last couple of years will be strong years because by then I think that all the changes [are] worked out,” the executive said.

In the meantime, VTNA is ramping up production and looking to increase sales of its revamped VNR regional-haul tractor and overhauled VNL longhaul rig.

Serial production of the latest iteration of the VNR began on schedule at the New River Valley plant in February. The truck maker opened its order book for the VNR in September.

VTNA has secured 2,000 orders for the VNR since then, Magnus Koeck, vice president of strategy, marketing and brand management, said during a March 31 briefing at the brand’s customer center in Dublin.

The truck maker relaunched the VNR at the 2025 Technology & Maintenance Council Annual Meeting, promising a 90% redesign of the previous iteration. The VNR originally debuted in April 2017.

In the third quarter of 2026, VTNA will launch a third truck on a platform enabled by a $400 million overhaul of the New River Valley plant. The heavy-haul and vocational truck is code-named “X”.

All three, plus an overhaul of Mack’s on-highway Class 8 portfolio, are the foundations for Volvo Group ambitions to win a 25% North American heavy-duty truck market share by 2030.

VTNA won a 9.1% share of Class 8 U.S. retail sales in 2025, while Mack took an 8.7% slice of the pie, according to Omdia data.