It’s A Truckedy: Volvo’s Rigs Poofed

You think car sales are bad? Try trucks. If you are anywhere close to the big rig truck business, take a Valium, aggression management counseling, or a gun before reading further.

European truck maker Volvo admitted to an aghast London Evening Standard that European sales for new Volvo rigs have gone up. Gone up in smoke, that is. Volvo’s truck sales evaporated by 99.7 percent. Yes, you read right. We repeat: Volvo’s truck sales are a mere 0.3 percent shadow of themselves. Volvo took orders for just 115 new trucks in the last three months. In the third quarter of 2007, Volvo sold 41,970.

Global orders for Volvo imploded by 55 percent in the last three months. Truck maker Scania said its Western Europe truck orders collapsed by 69 percent. (Tut-tut to London: The Evening Standard says that “Volvo has majority control” of Scania. Apparently, the news by-passed the Brits that in July, VeeDub had raised its voting stake in Scania to 68.6 percent. Which they probably deeply regret in Wolfsburg. )

Volvo also makes trucks under the Renault and Mack brands. Volvo is Europe’s second biggest truck maker, after Germany’s Daimler AG. No word from Stuttgart yet on their sales, or utter lack thereof. But as goes Volvo, so goes the neighborhood. Volvo’s car division had been sold to Ford in 1999. (Higher learning trivia: “Volvo” is Latin and means “I roll.” In post-Lehman English, it auto-antomized to “I roll over.”)

(Picture courtesy jwood. Thank you!)