Peterbilt’s new leader relies on partnerships and patience amid market uncertainty
DENTON, Texas—The trucking industry’s newest chief executive is taking over an iconic truck maker during uncertain economic and supply chain times. Peterbilt General Manager Jacob Montero said his brand and its Paccar parent company have been through it before, and he and his leadership team are ready for the moment.
“We’ve been in business going back to 1905,” he said of Paccar. “That spans 21 presidents, 29 election cycles, multiple technology transitions over that period, even back since the ’70s: 33 different federal emissions and fuel standards. Regulatory change is part of what we do.”
Montero, who took over the iconic Peterbilt brand in January and serves as a Paccar VP, and his leadership team hosted trade industry media at the company’s north Texas headquarters this week.
The U.S. freight market still waits for its post-pandemic rebalance as fleets and truck buyers seek clarity on emissions regulations that the Trump administration and Congress want to revise or repeal. This and unstable tariff policies have made long-term business planning difficult through the first few months of 2025.
“It’s a partnership, right?” Montero told industry journalists during a roundtable Q&A with Peterbilt’s new executive leadership team on April 13. “You can’t predict the future, but we can stay very close with them and advise them and try to assist them as they look and set their purchase plans over the next few years... It’s a unique time in our industry because of regulation uncertainty, things that you’re hearing out of the White House. But we’ll just stay close to [our customers] and see where it evolves.”
Paccar and Peterbilt have invested billions of dollars into its product lineup, which includes over-the-road tractors, heavy- and medium-duty vocational trucks, and various work trucks with a growing natural gas and battery-electric line. Mitesh Naik, Peterbilt’s product planning and strategy director, called it “the broadest product lineup” in the industry. “From a customer perspective, our partners should feel really good about that,” he added.
Peterbilt officials noted the OEM led with 21.2% market share in vocational and refuse market share. Its overall Class 8 sales rose a percentage point in 2024 to 15.7%, edging out its sibling Kenworth for No. 2 behind Freightliner, according to American Truck Dealer data.
Montero, this week, touted last year’s successful Model 589 launch. The OEM built more than 6,000 of the long-nosed tractors that replaced the traditional Model 389 last year. The Denton factory also built its 800,000th vehicle as the facility continues to be updated to make way for more battery-electric builds.
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Peterbilt’s approach to tariffs, regulations, and uncertainty
Among the early 2025 headwinds is Trump’s erratic tariff policy that has slowed some long-term business planning. Montero said he’s waiting to see how the market evolves, knowing the OEM is ready to tackle the supply chain challenges tariffs might cause.
“Paccar has a flexible manufacturing strategy,” he noted when asked about tariff uncertainty. “We build in all three countries. We build in Mexico, we build here in the United States, we build in Canada, and we have the flexibility for those factories. But I’ll tell you, it’s been changing so rapidly, it’s just too early to comment because of that.”
Market uncertainty has spread to the anticipated 2027 EPA prebuy for fleets looking to get ahead of scheduled environmental regulations that would make commercial trucks more expensive because of required diesel technology and extended equipment warranties.
After the turbulent start to the year, ACT Research downgraded its 2025 Class 8 order forecast from 289,000 units to 255,100 after a weaker than expected first quarter.
Citing the White House’s attempt to upend global trade, ACT President Ken Vieth told FleetOwner this week that “Trump’s policies have introduced considerable risk and uncertainty into business planning.”
Vieth added that along with economic uncertainty driving down truck sales in 2025, “we add regulatory uncertainty, especially in regard to the EPA’s low-NOx, Clean Truck regulation.”
It’s still unclear how much and how quickly Trump and Congress can dismantle emissions regulations. But Peterbilt’s new leader can be patient.
“Lots of uncertainty right now in the regulatory front,” Montero said, “but we’re prepared if it happens. Just need to see how the second half of the year works out.”
Montero, who cited ACT’s figures during the discussion, added: “There’s no wait-for-next-year approach. I think most fleets have a cycle they need to manage. They have a fleet age they need to manage. They always need to be replacing trucks … We’ve dealt with regulatory changes before, and each fleet has their own perspective of how they look at it. But I don’t really see too much changing right now.”
See also: Kenworth and Peterbilt predict pricing power returns to OEMs by summer
Keeping Peterbilt’s focus on its customers
With nearly two decades at Paccar, Montero was assistant GM of sales and marketing before taking Peterbilt’s top executive role. He called it “an absolute privilege to lead the Peterbilt brand” surrounded by a strong team, including Erik Johnson, who took Montero’s previous role. Johnson, who has an engineering background, has also been with Peterbilt for 19 years, most recently as the manufacturing facility plant manager here in Denton.
“I’ll give Jake kudos—the team didn’t skip a beat,” Johnson said. “The best part about this role and the factory’s are the customers. My big thing is empathy. What drives the customer? What helps the customer out? That’s what we want to do at Peterbilt. That customer could be the fleet owner, could be the driver, or the technician. But empathy for what they’re doing helps us perform better as a company.”
While Johnson noted that the uncertainty facing markets so far this year “just adds mud to the [already] muddy water,” he thinks patience will pay off and partnerships will pay off.
“There will always be some level of uncertainty,” Montero said when asked about taking over the company during the erratic first quarter of 2025. “Tariffs have been unique, the regulations uncertain. To me, the uncertainty is unique as well.”
However, he is not focusing on the timing of his promotion: “There is no great time, no worse time. It’s just what it is. I’m super excited about the future of Peterbilt, the products we have, and the customers that we’ve been able to partner with. It’s just in a really good place even with the uncertainty.”
