Fleet Equipment & Manufacturers Analysis

Analysis

· as of May 28, 2026

The most counterintuitive pattern in FMCSA equipment records is how much of the registered fleet predates the current decade. The fleet-wide weighted average model year sits at 2016, but the age distribution reveals a pronounced long tail: trucks from model year 2007 alone account for 138,069 registered units, more than the combined count of 2025 model year trucks (134,586) and nearly half the volume of the peak cohort, 2022 model year trucks at 293,059 units. That 2007 spike likely reflects pre-emissions-rule purchasing behavior, as carriers rushed to buy pre-2007 EPA-standard engines before stricter regulations took effect, a pattern consistent with fleet composition data from that period. The presence of 19 model years from 1991 through 2009 still contributing measurable unit counts is consistent with the economics of small and owner-operator carriers, for whom truck replacement cycles extend well beyond what large fleets would tolerate.

On the manufacturer side, Freightliner's 30.0% share across 4,163,388 total registered trucks is not itself unusual for the segment, but the carrier-concentration pattern is. Freightliner serves 301,897 distinct carriers, while Kenworth at 13.3% share reaches only 181,467 carriers and Peterbilt at 12.1% reaches 160,931. That gap between Freightliner's truck count lead and its carrier count lead suggests broader penetration across smaller operators, not just large fleet dominance. International, with 11.73% market share, is registered across 162,922 carriers, a count nearly identical to Peterbilt despite a slightly higher unit total, which may indicate similar carrier-size profiles between the two brands.

On the trailer side, the tank trailer fleet carries an average model year of 2012, the oldest of any trailer category tracked, compared to flatbed tag trailers and reefer trailers both averaging 2017. The dry van segment, at 1,384,845 units, is more than three times the size of the next-largest category, flatbed tag trailers at 443,542 units, reflecting the continued dominance of general freight over specialized equipment in the registered base. Across the full five-year window available in this dataset, the fleet has not materially refreshed: the concentration of units in the 2016 through 2020 model year range suggests replacement activity accelerated in the late 2010s but has not produced a step-change in overall fleet age.