Trucking in 2022 and Beyond
What will happen in the trucking industry for the upcoming year? Our predictions for 2021 were a toss-up between being correct and incorrect: the Tesla Semi was delayed and trailer sales stabilized, but Class 8 truck sales and freight rates are higher than they have ever been. Here are our predictions for the third year of this crazy decade.
Tesla Semi Delayed to 2024
Elon Musk of Tesla already announced that the Tesla Semi would be shelved until 2023. We are going to go even further beyond and say that the company will announce a delay before the previous delay has ended.
The reason for this may appear to be supply chain shortages, but the truth is much more simple than that: the profit margins on a Tesla Semi have been confirmed to be lower than any of their other offerings. Why spend $100,000 to make a single Tesla Semi and sell it for $145,000 when you can use the same monetary resources to build five Tesla Model 3s and sell them for $36,000 each? These are hypothetical numbers, we do not know the official costs to produce Tesla’s vehicles, but they explain the largest hurdle the Tesla Semi has to overcome.
Trailer Sales Will Exceed 2021
In a previous article, we provided arguments for why we are confident trailer sales will be larger in 2022 than in 2021. In short, supply shortages were indirectly caused by COVID-19, and the virus is becoming less deadly as it “realizes” that killing its host stops the virus from reproducing and spreading. This is evident by the CDC numbers that show January 2021 is experiencing record high cases and record low deaths at the same time!
2022 should easily surpass 249,000 units moved, but it will be interesting to see if it exceeds 2020 at 297,000.
Trucking Hires Will Hit All-Time High
It does not take a mathematician or statistician to know that trucking employment is on track to exceed the number before the pandemic started, but we are keeping our fingers crossed that the number will topple May 2019’s numbers at 1,530,900. With a soft estimate of 1,523,300 workers in the trucking industry for December 2021, it will take a net increase of 634 jobs each month for trucking to see a new record. We see it as feasible for the same reason we think trailer sales will rise: coronavirus is becoming less deadly.
Conclusion
While nobody can tell the future, studying trends to make educated guesses as to what comes next is fair game. If any of these events happen during the next year, we will be sure to link you back here to know that our prediction became true!
ABOUT TOPMARK FUNDING
TopMark Funding is a top-rated semi-truck financing and trailer financing company located in Roseville, CA. We specialize in commercial trucking and heavy equipment. Our mission is to become your long-term financial partner by helping you grow your trucking business and fleet.
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