Volvo Group plans to modestly scale back U.S. truck production after orders in North America declined by 34% year over year to about 11,100 units, according to its Q4 earnings report. The OEM pointed to the lingering freight recession resulting in low levels of demand.
The company will implement “stop weeks” in Q1 rather than make more permanent structural changes, CEO and President Martin Lundstedt said during a Jan. 28 earnings call. The move follows an undisclosed number of stop days in Q4, which resulted in under-absorption and weighed on the manufacturer’s overall performance for the period, where deliveries fell 16% to 11,490 trucks.
“[We’re going to] muddle through now, keep the eyes on the ball, do what is right because the market will come back in North America and then you should be on the right level when it comes to capacity and inventory,” Lundstedt said during the call.
Despite a weak outlook for Q1, Volvo executives said recent ordering activity points to a gradual recovery in North America later in the year. Carriers could even prebuy vehicles, due to the uncertainty surrounding the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2027 emissions standards, Lundstedt noted.
As a result, the company raised its 2026 guidance for truck registrations in North America to 265,000 units, an increase of 15,000 from the forecast issued in Q3 2025. If realized, that figure would represent a slight improvement over the 257,968 registrations recorded in 2025 but would still fall well short of the 304,274 registrations seen in 2024.
In prepared remarks, Lundstedt said Volvo has observed stabilization in several markets, but he cautioned that geopolitical developments could still weigh on demand.
“We are starting to see somewhat better activity level,” he said during the earnings call. “If that is a sign that we’ll prevail — maybe too early to say — but of course, there are a number of parameters supporting that.”
