Commercial Vehicle Data Tells the Tale

Despite Inventory Challenges Commercial Vehicle Sales Increase 11% in 2021

Work Truck Solutions®, the leading authority on commercial vehicles, released their 2021 analysis of the commercial vehicle market and their forecast for 2022.  Work Truck Solutions is the only company that collects national data reflecting commercial vehicles customized after the chassis or van is manufactured by an OEM.  

Although 2021’s commercial vehicle (CV) inventory mirrored the automotive industry vehicle production slowdown, overall commercial vehicle sales for the year were up more than 11% over 2020. In addition to the year’s CV sales growth, 2021 also demonstrated some interesting shifts in market focus, with market demand for certain types of custom upfitted vehicles clearly increasing, measured in overall proportion of customer inquiries on them. 

The top ten commercial vehicle types by market demand for 2021 included the typical service body that is used by the largest number of vocations, but also included significant increases in buyer demand seen in dry freight, up 275%, and refrigerated, up over 200%. A continued demand for vans was challenged by significantly reduced inventory, resulting in an increase in demand for pickups, flatbeds and passenger wagons that filled in as final-mile needs continued to scale. 

Kathryn Schifferle, Work Truck Solutions CEO, predicts that the demand for vans will remain escalated for 2022, as well as the increase in refrigerated vans and box trucks. She also expects to see, “a plethora of vehicles for unique cases such as ‘secure transport’, used for cannabis delivery, continue to grow in 2022, following a 283% increase in 2021.” Schifferle went on to say that they’ve been observing a new rush to provide mobile maintenance services, which all need specialized vehicles, for both fleet and home maintenance plus service needs. As a result, this is expected to be one of the fastest growing segments of commercial vehicles in 2022. “Delivery vehicles showed the largest increase in online leads; these are delivery vehicles ranging from first mile, to middle mile, to final mile – with this category being up a staggering 1,100%,” commented Schifferle.

As Work Truck Solutions predicted at the close of 2020, dealers’ list prices for new work trucks in 2021 did increase over 13%, and new work van prices were up over 18%, illustrating the results of increasing demand coupled with lower supply. And even more dramatically, used vans averaged $40,000 compared to $33,000 in the prior year, and used work truck prices on average were up more than 40%.

Work Truck Solutions and Schifferle also expect that both new and used commercial vehicle prices will maintain their significantly higher averages through 2022. Unlike retail vehicle pricing, which has been predicted to soften because consumers can decide to delay their purchases, commercial vehicle values will continue to hold at high levels because businesses just cannot wait.

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