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Mexico Heavy-Duty Output Rises for First Time in 17 Months
Freightliner Plants Power First Year-Over-Year Production Gain Since November 2024
Key Takeaways:
- Mexican manufacturers built 12,306 heavy-duty trucks and buses in April, up 8.7% year over year and ending declines since November 2024.
- Freightliner drove the rebound, producing 8,006 trucks and exporting 7,590 while Kenworth and International posted year-over-year output declines.
- April production fell 2.5% from March, and year-to-date output remained down 21.97% at 41,071 trucks and buses.
Truck and bus manufacturers built 12,306 heavy-duty vehicles in Mexico in April, an 8.7% increase compared with 11,321 in the year-ago period, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography.
April’s total was the first year-over-year increase in production since November 2024.
For context, through the first four months of 2026, Mexican heavy-duty vehicle production was 21.97% lower year on year at 41,071 trucks and buses.
Class 8 truck brands accounted for 95.5% of April’s production total, and 85.4% of that output was exported to the United States, INEGI data released May 13 shows.
Production of trucks and buses in April fell 2.5% compared with March’s total of 12,617 vehicles, according to the data.
Mexican truck exports rose 12% year over year in the most recent month to 10,042 vehicles from 8,964 units in April 2025.
Daimler Truck North America’s Freightliner brand powered the first increase in Mexican heavy-duty vehicle production in 17 months as well as the rise in exports.
Freightliner’s Saltillo and Santiago Tianguistenco plants produced 8,006 trucks in April, a 32.8% jump compared with 6,030 in the year-ago period. That said, the total fell 3% compared with 8,251 trucks in March.
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Exports by the DTNA division rose 30.9% year over year to 7,590 trucks from 5,797 in the prior-year period.
In contrast, Freightliner’s fellow U.S. Class 8 truck manufacturers with production plants in Mexico — Paccar unit Kenworth and Traton Group’s International Motors division — saw a year-on-year decrease in output.
Production at Kenworth’s Mexicali plant fell 25.9% year on year in April to 834 trucks from 1,125 trucks, the INEGI data shows.
However, output at the plant rose 11.5% sequentially from 748 trucks in March, which was a 54.2% year-over-year decrease.
International built 2,915 trucks in the most recent month, the data shows, a 17.6% decrease compared with 3,537 trucks in April 2025.
Lisle, Ill.-based International’s Escobedo plant built 2,990 trucks in March.
Capacity at the Escobedo facility declined in April 2025 when a second shift at the plant was axed, with 900 employees losing their jobs.
