UK Bus & Heavy Truck Sales : 2020

An Alexander Dennis product plying its trade in London

To have heavy trucks and buses at a site that is all about cars may seem incongruous but some of us may have an interest in the larger vehicles that share the road with us. I will first of all cover buses, which includes any conveyance with multiple seats. I would have preferred just the larger sort but this is how the SMMT releases the data. Then we can consider large trucks.

Bus: Ford had an increase in a depressed market but it had a very poor 2019 so that has to be taken into account. Still a good result. The first big bus company is Alexander Dennis, unfortunately down 46% but large bus sales can be variable so not too much to be read into one year. 

It's nice to see Wrightbus still trading after it went into receivership a couple of years back. The second half of 2020 went very well for the Northern Ireland company. It's now got a hydrogen-fueled bus which gives it an excellent opportunity to succeed in a tough industry. As for the rest, there are plenty of minor players that had varying degrees of success.  

The world's first hydrogen double-decker bus

Truck: This is very much a specialised field, unlike many years ago when many carmakers had a truck division. A few still do but there are only a handful of companies that make most of the large trucks today. 

DAF is by far the dominant brand, many of the sales below sourced from their plant at Leyland in the north of England. It's part of the Paccar Group. Another local manufacturer is Dennis Eagle, part of the Terberg, Rosroca Group. It isn't big in volume but had a tidy increase. It specialises in refuse collection trucks.