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Volvo Sets July Start for Monterrey Heavy-Duty Truck Plant
Initial Output Will Be Limited as US and Canadian Demand Remains Soft
Key Takeaways:
- Production at Volvo Group’s new Monterrey heavy-duty truck plant will begin in July, Volvo Trucks North America President Peter Voorhoeve said March 31.
- The $700 million, 1.7 million-square-foot plant starts with very low volumes as U.S. and Canadian demand lags and will export all output north.
- Volvo plans to use Monterrey as added capacity if markets rebound around 2027 as it targets a 25% North American share by 2030.
DUBLIN, Va. — Production lines at Volvo Group’s Monterrey heavy-duty truck manufacturing plant are set to begin rolling in July, Volvo Trucks North America President Peter Voorhoeve said March 31.
VTNA and Mack Trucks’ Swedish parent company unveiled plans for a 1.7 million-square-foot plant in April 2024. The company said the following August that the $700 million facility would be located in Monterrey, Mexico.
Initial volumes at the plant will be “very low,” Voorhoeve told Transport Topics during an interview at VTNA’s flagship New River Valley manufacturing site in Dublin, Va.
Current U.S. and Canadian market demand levels do not require production at the Monterrey plant to ramp up quickly, the executive said.
“We have [the Monterrey] plant in order to provide additional capacity when the market takes off, because in the past we were not able to follow the market if it took off because — with one plant — it was not enough,” Voorhoeve said. “And then somewhere in ‘27, if the market takes off, then we are ready to use that plant as additional capacity.”
VTNA’s share of the Monterrey plant’s output will be exported to the U.S. and Canada. Mack’s share will supply the Mexican and Latin American markets, as well as the U.S. and Canada.
VTNA currently has two U.S. manufacturing plants: New River Valley and a drivetrain plant in Hagerstown, Md., shared with Mack.
Mack’s main U.S. production facility is the Lehigh Valley Operations plant in Macungie, Pa.
Until now, Volvo did not have a manufacturing plant in Mexico. VTNA and Mack Trucks’ peers among legacy Class 8 truck manufacturers have had plants in Mexico for years.
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"If the market takes off [in 2027], then we are ready to use that plant as additional capacity,” Voorhoeve said. (Keiron Greenhalgh/Transport Topics)
Daimler Truck North America owns two plants in Mexico: Saltillo and Santiago Tianguistenco. Saltillo, where DTNA builds Freightliner Cascadias, opened in 2009, and Santiago Tianguistenco was commissioned in 1991.
International Motors opened its Escobedo assembly plant in 1998. A full range of the company’s Class 8 lineup is produced at the plant, according to the Traton division, although a second shift was cut in April 2025 due to weak U.S. truck demand.
Total Mexican heavy-duty truck production in February totaled 6,974 vehicles, down 49.08% from 13,696 trucks in the year-ago period, according to the latest data from Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography.
Monterrey’s proximity to the U.S. border and its well-developed infrastructure to support sales to the southwestern and western United States were key reasons behind the decision to build the plant, Volvo Group said. VTNA sales in Mexico are currently served by its Curitiba production plant in Brazil.
The Monterrey plant will also support Volvo Group’s plan to capture a 25% share of the North American heavy-duty truck market by 2030, which the parent company revealed at its Capital Markets Day in Dublin in November 2024. VTNA is expected to contribute 15% of that total and Mack 10%.
VTNA captured a 9.1% share of U.S. Class 8 retail sales in 2025, while Mack held an 8.7% share, according to Omdia Automotive.
New River Valley received a $400 million overhaul to underpin those ambitions. The site now has two plants rather than one, with the body-in-white plant the most modern Volvo Group truck facility globally, featuring about 170 robots.
The Monterrey facility’s body-in-white plant will not be as automated as New River Valley’s, as it will not require the same level of optimization, Voorhoeve told TT following a media tour of the Dublin site.
The revamped VNL and VNR tractors produced side by side at the New River Valley plant are part of the push toward those targets. A new heavy-haul and vocational truck — code-named “X” — to be launched in the third quarter of 2026 also factors into those ambitions.
