Volvo Trucks North America holds 8.4% of the North American heavy-duty truck market, down from 9% in 2024, and Peter Voorhoeve says the road to 15% runs straight through vocational trucks — a segment where Volvo currently holds 2% to 3%.

The brand president laid out the math at a keynote at Volvo Construction Equipment's Customer Center in Shippensburg, Pa., timed to Wednesday's unveiling of the VNX vocational truck. The numbers are stark. Vocational work — construction — accounts for 25% to 30% of the market. Long haul is half. Regional haul is a quarter.

"So we developed products for the long haul, which is half of the market. We developed products for regional, which is a quarter of the market. And then we had a limited presence in vocational," Voorhoeve told FreightWaves.

What does the VNX change for buyers?

The VNX is the third truck on a shared North American platform, after the long-haul VNL and the regional-haul VNR. All three share a chassis and electrical architecture, Voorhoeve said. Each gets its own cab. The platform sits inside Volvo's largest-ever North American investment program: more than $2 billion in new products, reported earlier in March, with Volvo putting the total including manufacturing at $3 billion.

"When we then decided to put in a two-billion-dollar investment program platform, of course we need the whole market," Voorhoeve said. "So let's make now a platform where we can do the long haul, the regional haul, and the vocational."

The bet has precedent abroad. Volvo's cab-over FMX holds roughly 30% of the vocational market in both Europe and Brazil. The VNX now plays the role in North America that the FMX plays beside the long-haul FH and regional FM in cab-over markets.

Why vocational, and why now?

Vocational demand has outpaced the broader market in recent years, a tailwind Voorhoeve credited to the bipartisan infrastructure law and its spending on bridges, airports and highways. He expects data center construction to keep that strength going.

"Then we saw it coming back to normal a little bit, but of course now, with the whole data center boom, we will see a continuation of strength in that segment," he said. "Will it explode? That I don't really believe, but I think it will remain a very strong segment."

Volvo is aiming the VNX at agriculture, municipalities, concrete, construction and roll-on/roll-off work. The rest of the market is less predictable. Voorhoeve described a North American truck market that can swing from 220,000 trucks a year to 300,000 and back — a range he said is hard to staff a factory around.

Why Volvo built long haul first

Length rules explain the sequencing. European rules cap the length of the entire tractor-trailer, so builders put the driver on top of the engine to leave room for payload. That produced the cab-over trucks Volvo sells across most of the world.

"Here in the US, the trailer length is regulated, but the combination length is not regulated," Voorhoeve said. "So you can make a much longer tractor."

Federal rules bar states from setting overall length limits on tractor-semitrailer combinations on the National Network of truck routes. U.S. hauls also run longer. Voorhoeve pointed to a mail hauler that runs Volvo trucks between Miami and Los Angeles daily.

"That's two and a half, three days, and they do the desert," he said. "So you need to be able to live in your truck."

Volvo bought the White factory when it entered the U.S. and built White trucks under the Volvo logo for 10 years. The VNL arrived in 1996 with what Voorhoeve called the first integrated sleeper in the North American market. The VHD followed in 2000 — a great truck, he said, with fairly limited applications.

The cross-selling play

Volvo's other edge sits inside the group. Volvo Construction Equipment sells machines onto the same job sites where VNX customers will haul to and from the pit.

"If you have a Volvo Construction Equipment loader, why wouldn't you look at the Volvo trucks VNX?" Voorhoeve said.

The two businesses share a back office. In-house financing can bundle a wheel loader and a truck into one contract. The group's U.S. parts warehouses stock both construction equipment and truck parts, and both draw engine technology from the Volvo Group's global powertrain division. The VNX design itself drew on Volvo CE's knowledge of how wheel loaders and trucks work together on a site.

Not every vocational customer buys the same way. Some specialize in heavy haul — moving equipment, even houses — and only some own both machines and trucks. "Some operators have both the yellow machines and the trucks, and some don't," Voorhoeve said. "But we have now the opportunity at least to combine there where necessary if the customer asks for that."

Can Volvo get there?

The group set the 15% goal at its November 2024 Capital Markets Day in Dublin, Va. Voorhoeve declined to put a number on where vocational share will sit in a year. "Let's see where we end up," he said, adding Volvo is "fairly firm that we believe that with Volvo Trucks we should be able to get to fifteen percent market share, and that combines long haul, regional haul, and vocational."

On autonomous trucks following onto job sites, he wouldn't speculate: "First of all, our main focus is now to continue in the vocational segment and to strengthen our position with a range that has far more applications available."